SELECT SEBMONS 

PREACHED IN THE 

BROADWAY CHURCH. 



REV. E. H. CHAPIN, D. D 




NEW YORK: 
PUBLISHED BY HENRY LYON, 

No. 97 BLEECKER STREET. 

1859. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by 
HENET LYON, 
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for th« 
Southern District of New York. 



EDWARD O. JENKINS, 

IBrinter & Sttreotgper, 
No. 26 FsA2fKF0RT Steeet. 



PREFACE. 



From the sermons which I have preached in this 
city, I have selected some that were in a convenient 
shape for publication, and have gathered them into 
the present volume. This book, therefore, hardly 
needs any other preface than the title-page. I observe, 
however, that as it is a selection nobody need look into 
it for a system of theology, or even for a statement of 
all my views of vital and practical religion. But, 
without any affectation, I venture to say that while 
the scholar or theologian may find little to interest 
him in these pages, I verily believe that what I have 
preached here is religion, — and having tried to 
preach as one who does believe so, I hope that some 
who may take up the book will find in it that which 
will apply to their spiritual condition and meet their 
wants. I pray that God's blessing may rest upon it, 
and that it may do something for Christ's cause in the 
worlds I merely add, that should the reader find some 
repetition of ideas in these sermons, and even of lan- 
guage, the fact that they had no serial connection, and 
were preached at times wide apart, must be my excuse. 

New York, Oct. 29th, 1859. 

(iii) 



CONTENTS 



SERMON PAGE 

L— PROVIDENTIAL ADJUSTMENTS, . . 1 

II. — CHRIST'S PROMISE, .... 24 

III. — THE LAW OP MANIFESTATION, . . 42 

IV. — CHANCES IN LIFE, .... 56 
V.— DIVINE PROVIDENCE, . . . .72 

VI.— GROWTH AND ADVANCEMENT, . ^ 88 

VH.— THE TWO MITES, . . . . .107 

VIH.— HOME, ...... 122 

IX.— WORKING AND WAITING, . . .137 

X. — TRUST, 156 

XI. — THE EPICUREAN'S MAXIM, . . .175 
XII.— IDEALS OF LIFE, .... 189 

XIII. — THE PRINCIPLE OF THE DIVINE KING- 

DOM, . . . . . -206 

XIV. — THE PARABLES OF PROVIDENCE, . 226 
XV.— THE BOOK OF HUMAN LIFE, . . .242 

XVI. — HUMAN LIMITATIONS, . . .261 

XVII. — THE ALABASTER BOX, . . . .281 
XVIII.— THE INWARD SPRINGS, . . .299 

XLX.— LONELINESS, 318 

XX.— OVERCOMING THE WORLD, . . 332 



(v) 



SELECT SERMONS. 



i. 

PEOVTDENTIAL ADJUSTMENTS. 

For the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. 

Matthew v. 34. 

Man has been described as " a being of large dis- 
course, looking before and after." He might also be 
designated as a being possessing a two-fold faculty of 
vision ; for both in its comprehensiveness and its 
minuteness, he is distinguished from all other creatures 
in the world around him. Of all others, man alone is 
endowed with that analytic power which searches the 
lowest kingdoms of nature, and penetrates the heart 
of things. While, on the other hand, with the grandest 
achievements of his thought he bridges immensities of 
space, on which the brute turns blank and unspecula- 
tive eyes. 



8 



SELECT SERMONS. 



This double vision suggests the two-fold purpose 
and obligation of existence. Related both to the earth 
and to the skies, we are creatures of broad possibility 
and narrow actuality. Our interest sweeps through 
the universe ; but our personal occupancy of space and 
time is exceedingly limited. We are heirs of immor- 
tality, and involved with eternal things ; but our 
immediate work is here, in our own neighborhood, our 
own vocation, our own homes, and our own hearts. 

Now, it is evident that this condition of our nature 
will develop certain tendencies, and certain needs, to 
which it is the office of Truth to minister. Any teach- 
ing, or revelation, adapted to our wants and our expe- 
rience, must likewise have a two-fold aspect, and meet 
us on both sides — must meet us in the excursiveness 
of our nature, and also in its specialty. Man, a being 
of minute interests, and vulgar cares, with his eyes 
fixed on things that lie close around him, needs some 
light that shall shew him in everything the clear linea- 
ments of duty, and glorify his common path. But 
man, a being who looks upward ; a creature of fore- 
thought, of spiritual sympathies, of boundless aspira- 
tion ; needs some Truth comprehensive enough to quiet 
all the oscillations of his mind, and deep enough for 
the anchorage of his troubled heart. He needs one 
or the other of these aspects of Truth, according to his 
tendency to this or that extreme. For, in the play 
of this double-vision, man is apt to dwell either too 
exclusively in the broad view, or in the narrow and 
intense* 

For instance, in some minds there is a tendency to 



PROVIDENTIAL ADJUSTMENTS. 



9 



consider only the vastness of the universe, and to 
fasten upon generalizations. For such tendencies the 
science of astronomy affords scope. It takes the 
thoughts of man away from the point of observation, 
and carries them out into the immense movement of 
systems ; that utmost rim of telescopic vision whose 
burning circuit is only a wheel within a wheel. And 
as the earth dwindles in the shadow of his observatory, 
and glides forgotten beneath his feet, we do not wonder 
that details become absorbed in generalities, and the 
interest of individual things is lost in their relations 
as parts of an austere and splendid order ; until the 
intellect retains only the conception of general laws, 
a general Providence, and finally of a philosophical 
God — an Infinite intelligence that embosoms all things, 
but is too vast for any special issues, too abstract for 
any personal regard. 

But this extreme of human thought is recalled by 
the other pole of Truth. Science, leading man up the 
awful steep of worlds, and through boundless areas of 
general law, also bids him turn and look downward at 
the throbbing mechanism of a fly, of a mote ; at the 
processes of a water-drop or a cell-germ ; at the un- 
flawed beauty of a sea-shell, as though Infinite skill 
had combined all its resources, and concentrated its 
care upon that most fragile piece of workmanship. 
One day, walking over a barren and stony piece of 
ground, I came upon a little patch of verdure starred 
all over witli yellow flowers of the later summer, and, 
as it opened upon me so fresh and beautiful, as though 
it were spread out there simply to touch the sense of 
1* 



10 



SELECT SERMONS. 



joy, and to add to tlie measure of boundless Life, for 
the time it seemed to me as glorious as the firmament ; 
and the majesty of G-od was as palpable there in that 
little, unconsidered plot, as among the splendors of 
the morning, or in the sparkling tent of midnight. 
It is a note-worthy fact, that the great things of 
modern Science are its little things ; the wonderful 
divisibility of its objects, and the minuteness of its 
fields of interest. Societies are formed for the con- 
sideration of facts which, as man advances in his ex- 
plorations, keep scaling off from the general stratum 
of knowledge ; while the largest minds are astonished 
at the field that opens before them, finding the study of 
a life-time in the vesicles of animals and plants, in 
atoms that are unseen by the naked eye, in the incon- 
ceivable swarms that people a globule of the sea. 
And the hand of God is as evident in these minute so- 
licitudes, in provisions for these infinitesimal vibrations 
of being, as in the vastness which drowns our thoughts 
with glory. The legitimate inference from both these 
phases of fact is, that Providence is both general and 
special — that as He encompasses immeasurable space, 
and works by universal Law, so the minutest object is 
not below His care, and illustrates His majesty. 
Everywhere, both morally amd physically, the micro- 
scopic balances the telescopic eye, and rebukes the 
tendency to lose special issues, individual interests, 
personal relations to G-od, in cold and abstract gener- 
alities. 

But let me take another illustration. There is a 
tendency on the part of man to fix his mind in mate- 

• * M 



PROVIDENTIAL ADJUSTMENTS. 



11 



rial things, and upon the surface — in other words, vir- 
tually to make this world everything. I need not en- 
large upon this fact. It is too evident in the habits 
of millions. They are acting only in a dream of the 
senses, apprehending merely that which they can see 
and handle, living in the gratification of appetite, liv- 
ing in schemes for mere earthly good, and with hardly 
a thought of other realities beyond the limit of the 
senses, broader than this earth which is only a vail or 
mask of inconceivable glories. This gross exclusive- 
ness of vision, however, is not legitimately corrected 
on the other hand by treating the world as though it 
were altogether worthless. That is no genuine spirit- 
ualism which goes beyond this world for all its in- 
struction, and spurns these familiar things as merely 
sensuous and empty. That is true spiritualism which 
not only recognizes spiritual relations beyond these 
bars of flesh and sense, and the dim horizon of the nat- 
ural world, but discerns all things right around it — 
the common, the homely, in the light of spiritual rela- 
tions. Here is the evil — not that this world is gross 
and superficial, but that men live in it grossly and su- 
perficially—not that the field is narrow, but that our 
vision is not penetrative and broad. Surely, one need 
not flutter beyond these present limits, upon the as- 
sumption that all is known that can be known con- 
cerning things around us, and therefore that we need 
higher revelations. Is this world, then, an old, dead 
shell of sense and matter, affording nothing for us to 
learn ? " Known and exhausted " is it ? What do we 
know ? The truth that is contained in the most famil- 



12 



SELECT SERMONS. 



iar thing ? The glory that shimmers in the common 
dust ? The scripture of a flower, with Genesis and Rev- 
elation in its bud and calyx ? The mystery of thrilling 
nerve, and beating heart ? We do need the upward 
glance, the gaze far beyond this world, not because 
nothing good is to be found here, and nothing fresh 
and glorious is to be seen— not because it is all un- 
spiritual, and sensuous, and mean — but that we may 
turn back to our daily round, our familiar tasks, with 
clearer apprehension. True wisdom is in both the 
narrow and the comprehensive vision — not to fix our 
regards in one direction, not to withdraw our consid- 
eration from either. 

Of course the same train of remark applies to that 
error which hides the glory of the immortal state, and 
to the error that with that glory eclipses the signifi- 
cance of the present. The true eye-sight discerns the 
importance of each condition, and sees the realities of 
the soul stretching into both worlds, and running 
through the shadows of the grave. And so this two- 
fold vision preserves us from worldly absorption and 
from ascetic contempt, and, rightly blending eternity 
and time, shows us how we may truly live. 

Evidently, then, the Teaching, or Revelation, which 
is applicable to the deepest experiences of our lives, 
must meet both these tendencies of our nature, and re- 
strain us from the extremes of a regard either too dis- 
tant and vast, or else too narrow and intense. Now, 
we find that the Teachings of Jesus are adapted to both 
these tendencies. At times, He makes the closest per- 
sonal appeals, driving every man into the centre of his 



PROVIDENTIAL ADJUSTMENTS. 



13 



own individuality, directing Lis vision to the field of 
his own heart, and concentrating the interest of life 
upon his own personal effort. But we know the dan- 
ger of exclusiveness in this direction. In this very re- 
gion of intense personality and introspection, grow 
some of the worst religious errors. I need not en- 
large upon the evils of an extreme self-regard ; of a 
perpetual picking at motives and feeling after personal 
relations with God. A man sunk in such a narrow 
shaft of religious consciousness, can only nourish a 
sickly and fragile piety. He needs to be lifted up to 
the level of healthy action, of broad objective trust. 
And, therefore, while, at times, the words of Jesus stir 
the innermost depths of a man's spirit, so that he who 
has lain supine and gazing listlessly abroad, feels as 
never before the personal claim which rests upon him, 
the demand of present opportunity and the charge of 
his own soul ; in accordance with this other want of 
our nature, we find the great Teacher inviting his dis- 
ciples to look up from their own narrow field of re- 
sponsibility to the great scope of Providence, and the 
breadth of that spiritual kingdom of which they were 
heirs and "denizens. Sometimes to the heart heated 
with vain passions and fretful with balked endeavor ; 
sometimes to the spirit troubled with cares and fears ; 
Christ's lessons of Providence and of the Divine Fa- 
therhood, open up with a broad serenity, a vast assur- 
ance of Omnipotence and Love, that lifts us above all 
the shadows of the earth, and, as it were, carries us 
out into the boundlessness of the firmament. Yes, this 
Revelation of the All-encompassing Providence over- 



14 



SELECT SERMONS. 



arches us at times like the clear night-sky when one 
halts on his march through the desert ; breathing a 
blessed coolness over our parched and weary nature, 
and amidst the lonely waste, the drifting sand, and the 
fluttering tents, looking down upon us with a great 
and tender assurance of Permanence and Peace. 

And who has not felt the need of this great truth — 
who has not been glad to plunge his individuality into 
this ocean of superintending goodness and wisdom, 
and feel, through the struggle and fever of his own 
little life, the Infinite Heart beating under all things ? 

Such, then, is the two-fold attitude of our nature, 
and I have selected the text because it appears to 
meet both these conditions. It presents a truth to the 
vision that is too excursive, and to the vision that is 
too narrow. " For the morrow shall take thought for 
the things of itself." In the first place, here is a 
glimpse, beyond our own affairs, of God's working. 
Here is a suggestion of Hope and Trust. We see 
clearly but a very little way. The movements of the 
world run far beyond the scope of our own action. 
It is a consoling truth that, in a certain sense, things 
take care of themselves. In other words, there are 
in things certain Providential Adjustments, which meet 
the demand of circumstances, and which set themselves 
promptly and faithfully to work. This fact is beauti- 
fully illustrated in the human system. Thus, when 
any portion of the body receives hurt, how quickly 
nature responds to the summons, and every little vessel 
and fibre rallies with its help. Or look abroad in the 
material world. What a faithful agent nature is, and, 



PROVIDENTIAL ADJUSTMENTS. 



15 



like one set under authority, says to this thing, " Go," 
and it goeth, and to that, " Come," and it cometh, and 
to another, " Do this," and it doeth it ; and so nature 
takes care of itself — takes care of its own appointed 
domain. Surely, these processes are very beautiful ; 
and they are very affecting, too, when we consider how 
necessary they are to human welfare, to the general 
good, and yet how absolutely beyond our control. 
Man plants and sows and reaps, and completes the 
round of his working year. But the year itself moves 
like a great wheel, beyond his sphere of working, and 
turns with perpetual and beneficent change. He 
gathers the sheaves into his bosom, and his barns grow 
luminous with heaps of golden corn. But as man 
turns away, and leaves the stubble-fields to be swept 
by the winds of autumn, Nature, that never rests, 
patiently goes on with her tasks and prepares for new 
issues. For a few hours she celebrates as it were a 
festival. The woods put on gorgeous robes, the skies 
are lit with strange beauty, and all the face of earth 
looks like the coronation of a completed work. And 
then the mighty round begins again. Unseen forces 
take the rotting straw, the yellow leaf, the chemistry 
of the brown sod, and work them over for new uses. 
Under the brown soil they work, under the shroud of 
ice and snow — taking care of that over which man 
has no power, but without which he perishes. Con- 
sider the beauty, the impressiveness of this fact so old 
yet ever new! Nature, God's Providential agent, 
taking care of the things of- itself, while we wake and 
while we sleep ! Weaving its beneficent processes 



16 



SELECT SERMONS. 



under gloomy vails, quickening decay into fruition, 
turning carrion to flowers, drawing up foul exhalations 
into sunset glories and pavilions of the morning, and 
through the entire round of being, from monads to 
suns, from the way-side dust to the brain of man, turning 
ceaselessly its vast wheel of endless Life and splendid 
transmutation. 

But let me further remark that, if we find these 
Providential Adjustments in things, by which they 
may be said to take care of themselves, it is so with 
Times and Seasons. Each day bringing its own issues 
likewise brings its own helps, and in alliance with 
our endeavors proffers a Providential work. How 
often have we experienced the truth of this ! The 
dreaded morrow, that has cast its gloom over so many 
yesterdays, and prevented our needed sleep, how often 
have we found its anticipated trials soften and dwindle, 
as we passed under their shadow ! As we entered into 
the cloud some heavenly voice has saluted us, inspir- 
ing us with courage and with hope ; some unexpected 
help has encountered us ; we have seen something to 
mitigate our grief ; some clue has led us through the 
perplexity, and the foreboded ill has broken and 
vanished as we drew near. Or, if the full tide of an- 
ticipated trouble has rolled over us, we have been 
enabled to bear it, and we are now enriched in life 
with so much additional experience. " The morrow 
shall take thought for the things of itself." If you 
look forward to it at all, look forward to it as em- 
bosoming Providential helps and intentions, and com- 
ing only in the appointment of Infinite Wisdom and 



PKOVIDENTIAL ADJUSTMENTS. 



17 



Goodness. Surely, there is something broader than 
all your anticipated evil. There is the Love that sur- 
rounds all — there is the sweep of that Divine control 
in which all the " to-morrows" of Life are borne and 
carried along. 

Here, then, in the first place, is the broad view — the 
uplifting, excursive, consoling view, which sometimes 
we need to take amidst the trials of our earthly lot. 
But you will observe that it is also a limiting view, and 
bids us fix our attention on the period of time in which 
we actually stand. And this is a very practical sugges- 
tion. For one thing, it is a suggestion replete with 
comfort. Do we anticipate trouble on the morrow ? 
Does it fling from its unpenetrated depths a cold and 
gloomy shadow over our hearts ? Why, as yet, we 
have nothing to do with to-morrow. To-morrow may 
never come to us. We do not live in to-morrow. We 
cannot find it in any of our title-deeds. The man who 
owns whole blocks of real estate, and great ships 
on the sea, does not own a single minute of to-morrow. 
To-morrow ! it is a mysterious possibility, not yet born. 
It lies under the seal of midnight — behind the vail of 
glittering constellations. It has not yet lifted itself 
in the light of the dawn. We may crowd it with 
dreams, with fancies, with wondrous expectations, with 
dancing figures of our joy, with spectres of our dread. 
The waiting bride may light it up with festal splen- 
dor, the child may see shapes of fairy-land looking 
through the ivory gate, the schemer may set in the 
culmination of his hopes, the doomed felon may hear 
it already opening like the jar of a prison-gate, and 



IS 



SELECT SERMONS. 



the sick man may shudder at the thought of its issues, 
and feel its muffled tread already in his heart. But 
we have no right to enter its unknown field, and ap- 
propriate from it a single thing as though it actually 
were, or to live and feel as though it were. We have 
no right to draw down its sorrows any more than its 
joys upon our naked hearts, and disturb them with 
the vibration of its unrendered sufferings. All the 
sorrow that Grod gives us is to-day's sorrow — all the 
trial we have to contend with is to-day's trial — and, in 
all the difficulty and sadness of life, it is under the 
shadow of to-day's actuality that we stand, not the 
penumbra of to-morrow's possibility. 

Now, I beseech you, consider for a moment how 
the troubles of life would be lightened, if we thus 
regarded only what is, and did not live in anticipated 
sorrow. Let any man ask himself how much of his 
trouble is borrowed trouble, and is simply the shadow 
of a possible substance. It has been wisely urged by 
another, that we should take " short views " in life. 
Let us, at least, take short views in the direction of 
care and trouble, not stretching beyond that which is 
actually before us. 

Let us not suppose, however, that the truth pro- 
claimed in the text is merely a matter of comfort. If 
so we might draw from it immoral and irreligious 
suggestion. There might be some who would say — 
" If we are to take no thought for the morrow, let us 
in all things live loosely. Let us take no spiritual 
care. Let us make no moral provision. Let us act 
without reference to the soul's destiny." But, surely, 



PROVIDENTIAL ADJUSTMENTS. 



19 



these are not things of to-morrow ; they are things of 
to-day. And this very fact that the morrow shall take 
thought for the things of itself, — what does it imply ? 
Why, if the morrow takes thought for the things of 
itself, it does not take thought for the things of to-day, 
and it is with the things of to-day that we are shut in 
and have to do. And so the truth announced in the 
text not only inspires consolation, but diligence, and 
the most intense activity. The difficulty with us is 
apt to be this — we borrow for to-day the troubles of 
to-morrow, and carry over to to-morrow the duties of 
to-day. We shuffle off the business that really belongs 
to us, and trade on capital that does not. We set our 
forebodings to work, and let our working powers 
rest. 

Now, the truth under consideration is a corrective 
for all this. " The morrow shall take thought for the 
things of itself." This is a blessed fact to contemplate 
when you want to take a broad, Providential view of 
things. But, moreover, it is a great fact to consider, 
because it also bids us take an immediate and intense 
view of things — a view of things right around us. It 
actually hems us in to to-day. Whatever belongs to 
itself it will take care of ; but whatever belongs to 
to-day you must take care of. It makes to-day a 
great thing, an important, all-pressing consideration. 
And you see at once that the doctrine which it sug- 
gests is very far from prompting to negligence or 
indifference. For is not spiritual care a matter of 
to-day ? Is not the girding and preparation of our 
moral nature a matter of to-day ? Is not the work 



20 



SELECT SERMONS. 



of duty an affair of to-day ? Do not the currents of 
our spiritual destiny flow with us here to-day ? 

We sometimes speak of men who live for the day ; 
meaning thereby, men who live frivolously, sensually ; 
live in the glow of present gratification. But, in 
reality, these are the men who are living for to-mor- 
row ; that is, they are living for what the coming- 
waves of chance will bring them. They are not living 
in all the opportunity and possibility of the present. 
But this is the true method of living — letting the 
morrow take thought for the things of itself, but we 
taking thought for the things of to-day. 

And do we really apprehend what a day is ? Do 
we feel its importance ? Do we know its capacity ? 
A Day ! It has risen upon us from the great deep of 
eternity, girt round with wonder ; emerging from the 
womb of darkness ; a new creation of Life and Light 
spoken into being by the Word of God. In itself 
one entire and perfect sphere of space and time, filled 
and emptied of the sun. Every past generation is 
represented in it — it is the flowering of all history. 
And in so much it is richer and better than all other 
days which have preceded it. And we have been re- 
created to new opportunities, with new powers ; called 
to this utmost promontory of actual time, this centre 
of all converging life. And it is for to-day's work 
we have been endowed — it is for this that we are 
pressed and surrounded with these facilities. The 
sum of our entire being is concentrated here. And 
to-day is all the time we absolutely have. " The mor- 
row shall take thought for the things of itself." But 



PROVIDENTIAL ADJUSTMENTS. 21 



what belongs to the morrow ? Not a single task of 
present duty — not one claim of the present hour ! 

In this faculty of two-fold vision, let us look to the 
morrow as a Providential season which, when it comes, 
will bring its own adjustments ; but let us not look to 
it, either for postponement, or for fear. And, what- 
ever else it suggests, let us receive from it the sugges- 
tion both of present trust, and present action. Let 
not its possibilities balk or hinder any work of to-day — 
take from it none of its possible troubles — bequeath 
to it none of to-day's actual duties. 

And here let me say that really this is the spirit in 
which any great work is to be carried on, as well as 
our special and private obligations. It is a profound 
and often fatal error for us to trouble present demands 
with future issues. When the trumpet-blast summons 
us to the battle, we ought not to anticipate the bugle- 
note of retreat. 

" It is of no use to try ! " — how much is defeated in 
that assumption respecting any work or duty. What 
right have we to dally with this borrowed conception ? 
Do the thing that is right in the present. Whatever 
may occur 'to inspire either hope or fear, be simply 
loyal. Do you speak of "failure ? " What is it that 
so far has failed ? Surely, not your conviction that 
this is God's Right, God's Truth, which you have been 
striving to maintain. And for any cause there can be 
no absolutely fatal symptom, except a demonstration 
of its falsity. 

But you assume that the cause which has held your 
conscience and your heart will fail. That is not a 



22 



• 

SELECT SERMONS. 



word for you to say, or a thought for you to acquiesce 
in. Stand at your post in the army and obey your 
orders. You do not control the great movement of 
the battle. You cannot tell how God will rally the 
scattered wings, or call up His reserve. 

Permit me still further to say, that in this train of 
thought is indicated the essence, the vitality of all Re- 
ligion. Its deepest sanctions are not in the Past, or in 
the Future, but in the fact of the Eternal now — the 
present and spiritual realities with which we are every 
moment involved. He is best qualified to be and to 
act, who apprehends this state as an integral part of 
his moral and perpetual existence ; and who feels that 
each day, each hour, is precious in itself, as belonging 
to the vast sweep of eternity. He it is who for the 
highest as well as the most common interest of being, 
will do to-day what his hands find to do ; and will feel 
that God is with him and he is in the Divine Presence 
now. 

" The morrow shall take thought for the things of 
itself," and the day take thought for the things of it- 
self. Each season, in its Providential adjustments, 
will faithfully perform its office. See, the day is wind- 
ing up ! How much significance in this familiar fact. 
The day is winding up, but only consider how every- 
thing outside the sphere of human agency has been 
faithfully performed. The sun, the air, the wheeling 
earth, all in their order, each " beautiful in its time." 
Ah! I think how faithfully God fulfils His work — a 
work that must be done and yet that man cannot do 
for himself. But oh ! my hearer, you also this day 



PROVIDENTIAL ADJUSTMENTS. 



■28 



have had your trusts. And how have you discharged 
them ? Have you loyally, unreservedly, like nature in 
all its orbits, accepted each recurring point of duty, 
and filled each moment with its immediate purpose ? 
Thus truly, thus only, are you making ready for the 
morrow, whatever that morrow's character or issues 
may be. 

To fill every hour as it comes with that which it calls 
upon us to do, this is better than foreboding ; this in- 
deed is far better than unfaithful postponement. To 
fill each opening season with its appropriate work, 
to close it with its completed benediction, — this may 
seem a little thing, but really it is a very great thing. 
It is an integral part of that great sum that makes up 
character and life ; that makes up duty and destiny. 



II. 



CHRIST'S PROMISE. 

Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give 
you rest. Matthew xi. 28. 

In the first place, I call your attention to the fact that 
there is something very remarkable not only in the 
substance, but in the manner of these words. They re- 
veal a self-conscious authority and power in the speak- 
er, which distinguishes Him from any mere teacher or 
philosopher who ever came into the world. Here is 
no elaboration of argument, no hesitancy of opinion, 
but direct and full assurance. It is the manner of one 
speaking out of Himself, and knowing what He affirms ; 
identifying His promise with His own Personality. 
"Come" — not unto a theory, or an opinion — but 
" Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, 
and / will give you rest." There was but one who 
ever stood up among men, and spoke in this way. 

And thus conscious not only of what He speaks, but 
to what He speaks ! Such a wide range of application 
to His words ! There are so many who do labor, and 
are heavy laden. Nay, when we duly consider tlie 



Christ's promise. 



25 



matter, they actually comprise the entire human race, 
and they reach to the profoundest need of all. Can we 
conceive of an invitation which strikes upon a more 
common chord than this ? Is there any term which so 
comprehensively describes and summons men of the 
most diverse classes? Riches and Poverty — do not 
men labor, are they not heavy laden, in both condi- 
tions ? Will not these terms answer for the hearts 
that are sick in the midst of pleasure, as well as for 
the weary frames that are racked with pain ? 

Now one of the best marks of a good physician is 
skill in diagnosis. Through all the labyrinths of this 
mysterious organism, under the most complex disguises, 
his sure eye traces the radical difficulty. He says pre- 
cisely — "Your disease is here." So the Great Phy- 
sician indicated the radical disease of humanity at 
large, with that one word " Rest." 

For I need go no farther than your own conscious- 
ness to confirm the general applicability of the prom- 
ise in the text, " Come unto me, all ye that labor and 
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Do we 
not find something within ourselves answering to this 
call ? We read and hear many of these scriptural 
passages with indifference, until some personal experi- 
ence elicits their meaning. A wave of the heart wash- 
es over them, and then we see all their depth and 
beauty. But the passage before us, whenever uttered, 
must be felt, though its real fulness may come out only 
under certain conditions. I have heard the words pro- 
nounced by a gifted singer when they broke upon me 
with a significance I had never felt before, opening aa 



26 



SELECT SERMONS. 



it were into the calm recesses of the Saviour's own 
spirit ; revealing that peace which was deepest even 
in Him. They will always touch us with their great 
tenderness, and yet we may hear them as though they 
were addressed only to a class of men — only to the 
very weary, and the very miserable. A little knowl- 
edge of ourselves, however, will convince us that they 
are actually addressed to all men, and that we and all 
others need, more than anything else, the application 
of this promise. 

Oh, yes ! it is not alone the physically tired, the ab- 
jectly wretched — the long procession of those whose 
faces are pale with sorrow and marked with traces of 
unrest — it is not these alone that should start forward 
to meet this invitation of Jesus : but all conditions of 
humanity — bosoms throbbing under silks and jewelry, 
heads crowned with pomp and pride, and hearts busy 
with the cares and pleasures and diversified shows of 
this world. Man indicates his profoundest needs by 
his highest ideals. That which is farthest from Ms 
grasp is brightest to his vision. And so the cravings 
of his soul are betrayed in his associations with the 
idea of " Best." For he makes it the synonyme of su- 
preme good. The conception over-arches the trouble 
and effort of his daily life, as the deep, serene sky 
over-arches the earth. It is to " Best" that he looks 
forward in his most eager pursuits. This is to be the 
end of wealth, of power, of lofty fame — some niche 
of glory where he may repose upon his honors ; some 
sunny retreat, in which his later life may slowly burn 
away like a summer evening. What a blessing does 



Christ's promise. 



27 



he acknowledge in literal rest ; in the sleep whose soft 
oblivion makes an island of every day, and breaks the 
hold of continuous care ; that cools the hot brain, and 
bathes the weary eye-lids, and lets the buffeted and 
foundering heart cast anchor every night in some har- 
bor of happy dreams. He feels the beneficence of that 
law which makes even misery halt, and besieging for- 
tune strike its tents, and in the great democracy of na- 
ture levels the children of men in common helplessness 
and common need ; finding no conditions so wretched, 
no spot so bleak, that even the most desperate cannot 
recline nearer to the bosom of the common mother, 
and forget for a little while their sorrow and their 
shame. 

And when, in the merely natural view of things, 
man would soften the gloom of the grave, and find 
some consolation in that which is inevitable, he thinks 
of it as a place of kindly rest — a port where the storms 
of life never beat, and the forms that have been tossed 
on its chafiug waves lie quiet forevermore. There the 
child nestles as peacefully as ever it lay in its mother's 
arms, and the workman's hands lie still by his side, and 
the thinker's brain is pillowed in silent mystery, and 
the poor girl's broken heart is steeped in a balm that 
extracts its secret woe, and is in the keeping of a char- 
ity that covers all blame. And always this idea of un- 
broken quiet broods around the grave ; in sunshine 
and moonlight, under the watch of the midnight sky, 
when winter transforms the poorest mound into sculp- 
tured marble, or summer glorifies it with its procession 
of flowers. Our own poet has linked the great sleep- 



28 



SELECT SERMONS. 



ing-place to all the serenity of nature, and a greater 
poet than he, for thousands of years, has intensified 
our impression of that magnificent silence and " ease 
of Death/' where he might " have lain still and been 
quiet, and slept with kings and counsellors of the earth 
.... with princes that had gold," and " who filled 
their houses with silver," where " the prisoners rest to- 
gether," where " the small and great are," where " the 
servant is free from his master," where " the wicked 
cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." 

Nay, it is not merely the realm of silence and of 
darkness, but of the highest bliss, that we associate 
with this ideal, calling it " The Land of Rest." 

Measuring, then, the depth of man's desire by the 
height of this conception, we find it to be a universal 
craving of human nature. Therefore surely it was not 
mere earthly wisdom that thus knew what was in man 
so much better than even man himself knows, and that 
with a voice of self-conscious authority, uttered these 
tender, yet profound words — " Come unto me, all ye 
that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you 
rest." 

Passing now to the substance of this promise, we 
discover that it has various applications. While, as I 
have just said, the response to Christ's invitation issues 
from the common heart of humanity, it comes from the 
depths of different experiences. There are various 
conditions of mind and soul in which man feels this 
need of rest. 

I. For instance, the words of the text are applicable 
to those who are engaged in the conflict of Doubt. 



Christ's promise. 



29 



And this is by no means a limited experience at the 
present time, for ours is peculiarly an age of doubt. 
Not, as it seems to me, an age of positive ?m-religion, 
but, rather, a period of sincere interest in religious re- 
alities, without settled convictions ; a breaking up of 
the depths of religious thought — very different from 
the dogmatic infidelity and superficial materialism of 
the last century — thought desiring to reach some solid 
ground of faith ; seeking rest, though, it may be, find- 
ing none. Some seem disposed to regard this state of 
mind as a condition of moral weakness, if not of positive 
sin. He who withholds his assent from current beliefs, 
or questions the ground of received opinions, is looked 
upon not only as one blinded with error, but as one 
guilty of an offence. But surely we should learn to 
discriminate between earnest, honest doubt, and a volun- 
tary and flippant scepticism. On the other hand, 
we should distinguish between decided steadfastness in 
our own convictions, between a loyal preference of the 
right to the wrong, and arrogant judgment as to the 
integrity of those who may differ from us. We do not 
compromise our own faith by admitting the honesty 
of another's doubt. And while holding fast our own 
convictions, we may sympathize with the struggles of 
one who is trying to attain the same convictions, but 
who, as yet, has failed. Evidently a state of doubt 
may spring from the very earnestness of a man's dew 
tion to the Truth ; not, as appears to be so often as- 
sumed, from his wilful preference of error. I ask, what 
is there in this mere fact of doubting, that should put 
a man outside the pale of our respect and regard, or 



30 



SELECT SERMOXS. 



cause us to question even the depth of his religious 
life ? He, in his doubt, may be much more loyal than 
you in your faith. It may be that he is so bent on at- 
taining reality, he cannot be content with anything 
that seems to him other than reality. He is so con- 
vinced that Truth must be a matter of conviction, that 
he can be forced into no politic confession, into no 
smothering of thought. Now I have no regard for a 
cold, speculative intellect, that prides itself on non- 
conformity, and delights in doubt, while it keeps aloof 
from those warm and practical currents which lead 
towards a solution. But I verily believe that there is 
more religious vitality, more spiritual hopefulness, in 
an earnest seeker of the Truth, baffled as yet in his 
aim, than in a whole pew-load of strait believers, who 
have hummed their assent to propositions which they 
have never brought distinctly before their minds, and 
which they have never sounded with their hearts. It 
is better to be earnest about things, than to be satisfied 
with mere word^s. And I cannot help thinking that 
the promise — " Seek, and ye shall find," applies to 
those who are bent on discovering Truth as well as 
other blessings ; and if a man does seek for this with 
a true heart, surely God will lead him to all needful 
conclusions. Now a man is not justified in setting 
himself to work for the mere purpose of making doubts; 
every once in the while knocking in pieces the fabric 
of his own belief to scrutinize its interior mechanism. 
There is a time when we should rest upon reasonable 
convictions, and when, if the intellect can see clearly 
no further, we judge of opinions as we do of men — by 



Christ's promise. 



31 



their fruits. Still it is not good for a man to smother 
his doubt, or to deny it ; but to feel it clear through, 
sift it, probe it, and turn it up to the light. At least 
I am sure it is not the Christian way to meet doubt 
with denunciation and contempt — as though it were a 
condition of positive wickedness as well as of error. 
Let me say, once more, that I exempt from this consid- 
eration all heartless disbelief, all intellectual affectation, 
all that little second-hand scepticism which young men 
sometimes cultivate as they cultivate a beard, — in that 
callow season when they stumble against " the Abso- 
lute," and chatter about " the All." I attach great 
importance to the inquiry how far error is voluntary, 
and therefore is a result for which men are responsible. 
But where there is sincere, struggling, inevitable doubt, 
I say there the spirit of Christianity comes not in 
wrathful antagonism and the assumption of wilful un- 
belief, but with sympathy for the real need that under- 
lies all this earnest yet baffled seeking. It comes to 
meet the wants of that case, and offer its solution as 
the ground of "Rest." It comes not in antagonism to 
the nature that sends up this cry of doubt, but in re- 
sponse to it. It was precisely at this point that the 
Apostle Paul applied the Gospel. He saw what men 
felt after. He offered them a Revelation of that " Un- 
known God " whom they ignorantly worshipped. He 
did not denounce the Athenians, but appealed to them 
as one who discerned the depth of want that was man- 
ifest in their religious ignorance, and who knew that 
he had something better. And I believe that it is this 
condition of sincere but unanswered inquiry that 



32 



SELECT SERMONS. 



Christ Himself addresses in the words of the text. He 
has come into the world not to silence doubts, but to 
ansiver them. Answer them by His Truth and His 
Faith, as the only adequate solution of the great mys- 
teries of existence. 

I do not say that He has answered all possible ques- 
tions, and left no room for intellectual endeavor. But 
I do say that He has shown enough to give assurance 
to the trusting soul, and repose to the tired thought. 
I do affirm that in His Revelation of the Fatherhood 
of God, and of the immortality of man, He has cast a 
broad light upon events — light enough to explain their 
drift, and impart confidence as to their end. I main- 
tain that, receiving His Truth, no human heart need 
be miserable, no brain distracted. In short, He has 
answered the most necessary questions concerning God 
and human destiny. There is ample range for specu- 
lation, if the mind delights to drift among problems 
which it can never solve. It may tug at the old ques- 
tion of " the origin of evil," and find it good exercise 
as a piece of intellectual gymnastics ; but the heart 
is satisfied when it has discovered the uses of evil. 
We are free to reject Christianity if in this world of 
hopes and fears we can find anything better — anything 
that more completely fills our deepest wants. But we 
cannot find anything better — anything near so good — 
anything that kindles such Divine light amid our per- 
plexity and our dread. We may cast it off and try to 
live without it. But we cannot live a great while with- 
out it, in any condition of full and noble manhood ; 
meeting the trials of life, and the questions which open 



Christ's promise. 



33 



in all our social relations, and the events which press 
our nature into an intense consciousness of itself ; we 
cannot do this, without discovering our need of Christ's 
words to live and to suffer, to do and to die by. 
Therefore, there is no utterance in this world that so 
answers to what is deepest in us, and that so fulfils its 
promise, as that utterance wafted to us in our doubts 
and perplexities, over the lapse of ages — " Come unto 
me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will 
give you rest." 

II. But there is another experience of the human 
heart which is met by Christ's invitation in the text. 
It is an experience deeper and more common even 
than that of doubt — it is the experience of Sin. Some 
may say that here indeed is the spring of all other 
misery and unrest — of all painful doubt and weariness. 
Doubtless it is the spring of more evil than we can 
fathom, and to nothing are the Saviour's words more 
strictly applicable. " All ye that labor and are heavy 
laden" — does not this truly describe those who are in 
this spiritual thraldom and wretchedness? Not all 
laboring with this consciousness of sin, but all heavy 
laden. Not all, perhaps, even conscious that they are 
heavy laden. There are some whose sins, apparently, 
do not trouble them ; and who do evil things with a 
lamentable unconsciousness of iniquity. Moreover, 
the worst sins are, perhaps, those that are least felt — 
the most malignant but it may be not the most un- 
popular. We raise a hue and cry against certain 
gross vices. We lift hands of horror against the sin 
that damages property, or reputation ; and all this 



34 



SELECT SERMONS. 



very properly perhaps. But the sin that lurks under 
the veil of respectability, and cuts athwart no human 
law, but eats into our very selves like a canker, and 
demoralizes us at the core — the rooted selfishness, the 
moral unbelief, the un- Christ-like pride, down in the 
centre of our hearts, we may bear but little conscious- 
ness of that. And yet the omniscient eye may see 
more abomination packed away thus under smooth per- 
sonal decencies, than in the reeling brutality of the 
drunkard, or the painted shame of the harlot, or any 
other overt instances of guilt that hang out signals of 
moral shipwreck. Moreover, sharp, ragged sins — 
" violent sins/' as we may call them — puncture the 
conscience more keenly, and lead to a more intense 
repentance, than this inert guilt that coils in smooth, 
complacent folds about the heart. A tremendous lie 
may frighten a man out of the habit of lying altogether, 
who will daily serve out a batch of " white lies," and 
sleep none the less soundly. 

I repeat, then, although sin is really a heavy load, 
there may be a great many who are not conscious that 
they are heavy laden. And yet, I ask — is any man 
utterly at rest in sin ? Are the better instincts of the 
soul ever completely quenched? In the most har- 
dened nature is there not an aspiring something that 
feels the guilty gravitation which drags it down? 
The Prodigal, in his gayest moments, within the circle 
of the dance and the wine-cup, was he not heavy laden, 
and did he not know that he was heavy laden, though 
he may not have felt his burden so intensely as when 
he sat among the husks and the swine ? Look around 



CHRIST'S PROMISE. 



85 



you at the most repulsive forms of guilt ; at the dregs 
of human abomination that are blown like scum over 
the surface of society. Do you think that there is 
one so low , so crusted with uncleanness, so far beneath 
the line that separates the meanest man from the 
brute that perishes, that he never feels he is heavy 
laden ? Is there no slight nerve that quivers in that 
nature which still is immortal ? Is there no chord in 
that defaced soul that even yet announces the fact 
that all is not well with it ? Is there to-night, in any 
haunt of riot and shame, a nether darkness in our 
social state so profound that these words of Jesus 
would convey no meaning, and meet with no response ? 
A response waking up oh, what numb, sore chords ! 
calling up oh, what visions of lost innocence — vibrat- 
ing through what years of misery — as this Divine ut- 
terance, falling from His lips who rejected no penitent, 
who cast no scorn even upon the most degraded, should 
sweep over those wild and guilty hearts — " Come unto 
me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will 
give you rest." 

The glory of the gospel appears in its application 
to the grossest sinners, in its solicitude for the vilest, 
in hope and tenderness for the most abject. But, after 
all, these are not the greatest sinners. There is that 
hardness of heart which is covered with a smooth sur- 
face ; there is that polished adamantine wickedness of 
epicureanism and profligacy ; there is miserly selfish- 
ness, vain worlclliness, proud self-righteousness ; yet 
even concerning any one of these, I ask — is it entirely 
at ease? Has it no consciousness of being heavy 



36 



SELECT SERMONS. 



laden ? In all its glitter, its frivolity, its isolation, its 
abundance of possession, does it not need rest ? 

In this condition of sin, then, all men are heavy 
laden — in some way, all men feel that it is so with 
them — but all do not labor in the full consciousness of 
sin. The best of men do. Paul did. The great Apos- 
tle felt a mortal conflict going on within him, and cried 
out in the bitterness of his great misery. And any 
man in this condition — any man who, like that poor 
prodigal, has risen to his feet, and with streaming eyes 
turned towards the Father's face, saying " I have sinned 
against heaven, and in thy sight" — will know what it 
is to need and to find the Rest which Christ promises. 

Men find that rest not in any redeeming virtue of 
their own which cancels their past sins, or insures them 
against present sinfulness, but in their full surrender 
to that divine love which was made manifest in 
Jesus. They trust, and so they rest. Conscious that 
evil is in them, they are conscious that divine help is 
in them also ; and they are lifted above their failures 
and defeats by this conscious alliance in spirit with the 
Infinite One. The law condemns them. They strike 
against it and are beaten down. The Spirit assures 
them ; they cast themselves upon its merciful sympa- 
thy, and are saved. Yes, there is a substantial ground 
of rest for us when we actually feel that God knows 
our hearts clear through, and do not try to hide our- 
selves, or disguise anything that is within us from His 
eye, but in simple confession of our sinfulness rely 
upon His mercy and His help. 

The man who, roused to conscious conflict with his 



Christ's promise. 



37 



sins, surrenders himself to this conviction of the 
Divine sympathy and love, passes into the region of 
spiritual freedom. He is made free not from all lia- 
bility to sin, but from slavery to sin ; the desire, the 
motive, the love of goodness is in him, obviating the 
necessity of any Law to restrain him from evil, and 
placing him in alliance with the Spirit of God. In 
this freedom he possesses not sluggish repose — which 
is not what the word means even for earth or heaven ; 
but he has harmonious activity, which is Christ's 
promised Rest. He is still at war, but in the deepest 
recesses of his being, at the core of his life, he is at 
peace. I suppose this is akin to what Paul means 
when he says that " the Law of the Spirit of Life in 
Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin 
and death." I suppose that it was in this way, that 
from his terrible inward conflict that glorious spiritual 
warrior found Rest. 

III. Thus far I have dwelt upon experiences which 
may be practically limited — the experience of doubt 
to those who have been roused to (kink upon great 
spiritual realities, the experience of sin to those who 
have been roused to feel these realities. 

There may be those, however, who would say — 
though they ought not to say it — " these words of 
Christ do not reach us in either of these experiences." 
Let me, then, inquire whether a response to the invita- 
tion in the text does not issue from the condition of 
our common and daily life. " Come unto me, all ye 
that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you 
rest." I ask, does not this appeal find some response 



38 



SELECT SERMONS. 



in your hearts ? Does it not strike there as if it 
meant something for each of you ? I will not now 
specify the openly miserable and weary, the sorrow- 
stricken children of humanity, to whom these words 
have come for nineteen hundred years with such sweet- 
ness and assurance ; hut I ask any man who now 
hears me — are you completely at rest in present con- 
ditions ? Do you not feel the need of something that 
does not come from material possessions, and is not a 
gift of this outward world ? It is a very simple 
question — but I would put it very earnestly. Do you 
not feel that in the Truth, in the Spirit of Jesus 
Christ, there is that which you cannot rest without — 
which you can rest with ? 

Let me suggest a few instances. I ask, then, do we 
not in the various transactions of life need a central 
poise, or principle — an axis of moral rest from which 
all our conduct shall radiate, and also a centre of 
inspiration ? Do we not need a principle which, 
broad enough for those great occasions which are rare 
in the transactions of life, is fitted to the smaller in- 
stances that occur every day ? Now Christ's Law of 
Love to God and to man, is just that principle. And 
a man without such a principle is a man without 
peace. Even though he may not be much troubled in 
conscience, he is perplexed with expedients. Unless 
he stands on the simple basis of Right, he is contin- 
ually inventing devices and dodging consequences. 
No man in this world of dollars and cents, of disap- 
pointments and cares, stands so firmly grounded as he 
who has only one law of action for all occasions, and 



CHRIST'S PROMISE. 



39 



that is the law of right action. He may fall into 
trouble, but he never meets with any real disaster. 
His worldly possessions may dissolve, but he is not 
shipwrecked. In the midst of whirling calamities 
and broken schemes, he has central peace, stable as 
the throne of God. 

Now, as a question to be answered by practical 
experience, I ask — do not men need such a central 
poise and principle to check their passions and to guide 
their aims ? It is, I repeat, a Providential fact, that 
no man can rest in anything but the decisions of this 
strait Rule of Righteousness. He who obeys it and 
lives from it, when he has tried to do all that it in- 
spires him to do, in the midst of all disappointments 
and defeats, can calmly fold his hands and wait for 
further intimations. But the man of expedients must 
keep patching and tinkering, and be driven from 
point to point, because his machinery does not fit and 
is perpetually out of order somewhere. 

It is so in public instances. An unrighteous deci- 
sion never settled a matter. The just course for the 
time being may seem paralyzed and bound — the Truth 
put to sleep. But God is in the universe, working 
through all things, and the guilty expedient cannot 
remain. The Truth simmers and heaves under all 
these devices, and makes manifest the law — " first 
pure, then peaceable." Battle-fields that break the 
green earth into furrows, are the places where Truth 
has heaved the clods from its coffin, and started forth 
to vindicate its everlasting majesty. The ruins of 
great empires are but the sundered walls and shat- 



40 



SELECT SERMONS. 



tered slabs of gigantic sepulchres in which men have 
vainly endeavored to seal tip their own iniquity, and 
have commemorated a lie. In public action, in com- 
mon life, there is no rest except in righteous principle. 

But, again, as a question of practical, every-day 
interest, I ask — do we not need the rest of substantial 
possession ? The things of this world coming and 
going in every alternation of seed-time and harvest. 
Life running by us like a roaring sea — nay, not running 
by us, but running tvith us — our youth gliding away 
like a dream — the faces we love altering with touches 
of relentless time, and fading in the mist of death — 
our vigor drying up, and our strength becoming 
exhausted — our wealth that we meant to lean upon 
shrivelling to cinders — our hold upon the world itself 
slipping every hour — with all this, I ask, do we not need 
such an inward assurance, such a vision of immortal 
Good, such a communion with the Eternal, such a 
consciousness of Rest in the Unchangeable God, as 
verily does spring up in our own experience of the 
faith and the truth of Jesus Christ ? 

Finally, let me ask — do we not need the rest of 
spiritual harmony — of essential harmony with all 
things that God has made, and with God Himself? 
We all know that a bad man is in discord with the 
great facts of life. But it is not merely the grossly 
sinful, the profligate and abandoned, that lack this 
profound harmony with things, but those whose lives 
are aimless and superficial, who are not growing into 
the stature of their full manhood, or fulfilling the 
highest ends of their being. Now look abroad in 



Christ's promise. 



41 



the world of nature ! See how things there live up 
to their best, and in their sphere fulfil a perfect work. 
Now, as at the first, it may be said of these that they 
are " good." But how shall we gain such a benedic- 
tion ? Only as we too live up to our best — as we 
come into conscious harmony, not only with nature, 
but with the God of Nature, the God of Life — as we 
come unto Him who invites us in the text, entering 
into the communion, into the very Life of Christ. In 
that spiritual harmony we shall find Rest. Rest, not 
sleep, not inaction — but the repose that accords with 
the noblest effort, the peace that is compatible with 
toil. Rest which is not a dream of celestial idleness, 
but the harmony of the grandest action. 

Surely, then, in some way, these words of Jesus do 
reach every one of us. They strike upon some chord, 
they awaken some response in every heart. For ages 
that blessed promise has sounded through the world. 
Answer, children of humanity ; in all life's change and 
action, in all its sin and sorrow, answer ; for this is 
what we all need — Rest. 



III. 



THE LAW OF MANIFESTATION. 

For there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested. 

Mark iy. 22. 

This declaration of our Saviour was applicable both 
to the Divine Word which He taught, and to His 
hearers as the early believers and missionaries of that 
Word. His Truth was accessible to all men. For 
every right mind, and for every devout heart, it had 
but one meaning, and for all such that meaning would 
come out more and more distinctly. There was no 
exoteric and esoteric teaching — priest's doctrine and 
people's doctrine — an apparent signification for one, 
and a mystic sense for the other. For all it was the 
same free, single Truth. What was spoken in the ear 
should be proclaimed upon the house-top. Whatever 
was hidden should be manifested. 

And those who in that early day took their lives in 
their hands, and went out preaching the Gospel among 
all nations, must have drawn great consolation from 
the thought, that there was nothing hidden that should 
not be made known — that although the Truth which 



THE LAW OF MANIFESTATION. 



43 



they proclaimed was now covered with contempt and 
trampled under foot of men, it should one day burst 
forth in glory, and, blossoming out of their very blood 
and ashes, should bear through all ages the record of 
their names. What the persecuted cause was, and 
what they were who maintained it, would not always 
be hidden, but would be manifested. A glorious thought 
for them, and a glorious thought for good and true 
men in every time ! 

But the declaration in the text yields not only these 
special applications. It announces, I think, a general 
Law, which operates in nature, in history, and in per- 
sonal experience. In each of these appears the fact, that 
" there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested." 

The instances which verify this statement in the 
natural world, meet us on every hand. Although 
many mysteries brood among these laws and forces of 
matter, and our wisdom is often balked before the 
humblest fact, we cannot affirm that anything has been 
made to be forever hidden. If now it lies deep and 
far, this is not a prohibition to our seeking, but a solic- 
itation of our faculties, which delight not so much in 
the truth already gained, as in the truth to be acquir- 
ed, and linger with unquenchable aspiration on the 
twilight confines of hidden mystery and perpetual sug- 
gestion. If we search after any secret of nature with 
right and reverent minds, all analogies assure us that 
it shall yet be made manifest. 

Thus also in the course of history. The waves of 
Time cast up old secrets and by-gone plots, and reveal 
interior facts that, like the fragments of Pompeii and 



44 



SELECT SERMONS. 



Ninevah, have been buried for ages. So with the 
record of crime. The cunning fraud is unravelled in 
the process of events ; the forger's guilt stands 
revealed in a ray of light ; and the murderer's deed is 
printed on the moist earth, or the blood-red leaf, or 
betrayed years afterward by spot, or crevice, or skele- 
ton mouldering in the wall. 

But among the abounding instances that establish 
the declaration in the text, not only as a particular 
Rule, but as a general Law, there are two or three 
departments of human experience in which this Law 
may be profitably studied, — and to these I now invite 
your especial attention. 

I. " There is nothing hid, which shall not be mani- 
fested." In the first place, I ask you to consider this 
as a fact of personal life. For illustration, take the 
elements of individual character — the qualities of a 
man's inmost being. Now I maintain that, in some 
way, these qualities will become evident ; will strike 
through into his visible life. Men differ greatly in 
degrees of transparency and amount of surface action. 
Indeed, perhaps in nothing do they differ more than 
in this. There are some who can be seen through like 
crystal. Every valve and vein in them is as palpable 
as their faces. All their thoughts and passions rush 
out at once. It is useless for them to affect secrecy. 
They never could make negotiators or diplomatists. 
Whether they are pleased or annoyed, whether they 
are in love or in wrath, every muscle of their faces is 
an electric telegraph, and betrays its signals. But 
there are others whose purposes and motives flow in 



THE LAW OF MANIFESTATION. 



45 



opaque silence. We cannot read them. The title- 
page tells us little of what is in the volume. And yet 
even these men, if not exactly known, are felt. His 
very concealment and imperviousness is itself a revela- 
tion. I recollect it was said of one who for many 
years held a high and almost saintly reputation, but 
who at length stood exposed as a splendid scoundrel, — 
it was said of him that, with all his apparent purity 
and calm majesty of character, there had always been 
evident in the depths of him — close about his heart, as 
it were — a sort of blur or film, like the speck in the 
core of a moss-agate. So that which was hidden in 
him, was really manifested. The fatal fact in the case 
of a hypocrite is, that he is a hypocrite. And I say 
concerning him, or concerning anybody else who, 
either by nature or by art, conceals certain qualities, 
if not clearly discerned, they are at least felt'. In one 
way or another the world understands what substan- 
tially they are. The secret element in some manner 
contributes to form their characters and poise among 
men, and affect them like hereditary qualities in the 
flesh and bones. The ancestral taint or excellence is 
transmitted in some muscle or organ ; it lives in some 
quality of the blood : it comes out in some subtle or 
complex way, in lineament or expression. Thus all the 
moral elements of a man's being, thus all the positive 
vitality of his character, however deep and unsuspect- 
ed, helps make the man, and is felt in its degree. In 
some way the secret vice exhales its poison, and the 
evil passion, however cunningly masked, stains through 
to the surface. 



46 



SELECT SERMONS. 



Or if that which really is in a man does not come 
out in the very quality and substance of his personality, 
it is betrayed on certain occasions or in unguarded 
moments by glimpses and side-lights. This truth is 
proclaimed in the common saying that no man is a hero 
to his own familiar servants ; to those who are most 
intimate with his daily foibles and weaknesses. When 
the compression of public regard is removed, and he 
walks no longer before the eyes of the world, then all 
that has been retained appears. There are times, too, 
when these guards are broken down by surprise ; and 
a word, or a look, makes manifest what was hidden. 
One lives very reputably until he encounters his par- 
ticular temptation, and then away goes the respectable 
fabric of years. The external circumstance brought 
out what was in him, and what even himself, perhaps, 
did not suspect. In the disclosure of some great crime, 
how often are we startled not merely by the revelation 
of guilt, but by the deeper revelation of the possibility 
of that guilt hiding itself so long under respectable 
masks and refined concealments ; nay, by the revela- 
tion of the possibility that the elements of such guilt 
may exist unconsciously in a man's own heart, until by 
some sudden touch of temptation it is crystallized in 
an overt act. In the time of danger, also, the inherent 
selfishness of men breaks through all conventionalities, 
while in moments of stern trial, the features of reputa- 
tion shrivelling away expose the real outlines of char- 
acter. Death is a great revealer of what is in a man, 
and in its solemn shadow appear the naked lineaments 
of the soul. With the folds of mortality, then drop 



THE LAW OF MANIFESTATION. 



41 



away vanities and majesties, pomps and professions ; 
nay, often weaknesses and obscurities ; and as the spirit 
sails away from our sight, it casts upon us a smile of 
sweet affection, a look of homely virtue, or holy hero- 
ism, which is the revelation of a misunderstood and 
unappreciated life. We know not who has been walk- 
ing with us and sharing our familiar lot, until just 
when that one puts on the immortal robes and the 
heavenly crown. 

Old age ought to be, and essentially is, a manifesta- 
tion of what is hidden in the depth of a man's nature. 
It might be, it should be, not an exhibition of crack- 
ling impotence and gloomy decay, but the very crown 
and ripening of life — the symbol of maturity, not of 
dissolution. So rich in its resources, so bright in its 
memories, so calm in the fulness of its harmony, so 
lifted up by a grand faith, as to over-top all melancholy 
associations. It is so in the natural world. In the 
latest hours of the year come out the full glory and 
richness of the year. I have rede along in this lus- 
cious autumn, these days of marvellous beauty, and 
seen the earth appear like a palette set with gorgeous 
colors, and encircled with a haze of sifted gold. And 
the testimony of the season is that of fulness of life and 
honor, the coronation of a beneficent work, developed 
through that beautiful process described in the verses 
succeeding the text, " First the blade, then the ear, 
after that the full corn in the ear.''' It seems as 
though, from every crypt and secret vein, affluent na- 
ture had summoned all her riches for one full, glorious 
manifestation ; and all her hidden beauty swims to the 



48 



SELECT SERMONS. 



surface. The buried seed, the dew that came by night, 
the unregarded sweat of human labor, bursts out in 
purple grapes and yellow corn. The secret juices of 
plant and tree tingle in quivering gold and blush in 
crimson. And every lowly and lovely thing that 
came and perished long ago has, as it were, left its leg- 
acy, and is represented in this congress of yearly glo- 
ries. The latter spring has bequeathed the color of 
its sky, the early summer the softness of its breath, 
and every little flower its peculiar tint, to be woven 
in this mantle of aerial gauze, and to suffuse the woods 
with this unconsuming and prismatic flame. 

In the latest hours of the year come out the full 
glory and richness of the year. Why should it not be 
so with the latest hours of human life? Why should 
these bear merely a record of waste, and feebleness, 
and unfulfilled opportunities ? Why only dark with 
regrets and forebodings ? Why only wear the look 
of a ruin, with its broken casements and shattered 
walls ? When old age does present this aspect, is it 
not a revelation of what has been in the man — of his 
secret character, and his real life ? Surely, a genuine 
old age, a christian completion of existence, will wear 
a kind of October glory, even when the body is bro- 
ken and the flesh is weak. It will correspond with 
autumn not only as the last but as the richest of the 
cycle. Then, in clear points of mental flame, in glories 
of faith, in the beauty of love, every tint of the soul, 
every gentle and holy affection, all the juices of secret 
devotion, every process of silent, inner, faithful work, 
will come out to complete and adorn the life of a man, 



THE LAW OF MANIFESTATION. 



49 



and the vestibule of death will be a gate-way of coro- 
nation. And then, if not before, that which is hidden 
in the depths of personal character will be manifested. 

II. In the second place, I ask you to consider the 
law proclaimed in the text as illustrated in the life 
of Communities and States. The sanctions of the 
divine government are not limited to individuals ; their 
circuit is vaster, their processes larger, than the sphere 
of any personal life, and one man, or one generation, 
may hardly suspect their operation. But He in whose 
eternity an ephemera's life-time, or a planet's orbit is 
equally finite, holds his steady sceptre over all events. 
A dishonest people is held to its account as strictly as 
a dishonest man, and events make manifest whatever 
evil is hidden under its temporal aspects. False insti- 
tutions which a nation takes to be buttresses of its 
strength, clog it with weakness and crush it to ruin. 
In the furrows of unjust conquest and guilty triumphs 
are sown the seeds of its final dissolution. " Laws 
which contravene the laws of God are not laws but 
lies : and like all lies, must perish in the long run." 
Glorify a lie; legalize a lie, arm and equip a lie, conse- 
crate a lie with solemn forms and awful penalties, and 
after all it is nothing but a lie. It rots a land and 
corrupts a people like any other lie, and by and by the 
white light of God's truth shines clear through it and 
shows it to be a lie. For every nation there has come 
a time when its hidden falsehood has been made mani- 
fest. Then either it must be purified, or it must 
perish. And if it does perish it falls to pieces because 
of the weight of falsehood that is in it, and whatever 
3 



^0 



SELECT SERMONS. 



truth remains it bequeaths to other people. At least 
so it has been with the great empires of the world. It 
may be doubted whether a people who deserved to 
stand — who had not become vitiated by some secret 
corruption, or some compromise of the truth — have 
ever been struck from the roll of nations. The hand 
that wrote Belshazzar's doom in ghostly letters on the 
wall, recorded there no arbitrary sentence, but was the 
out-stretched witness of inherent sin. It was not the 
battle-axe of Goth or Hun that shook the Roman em- 
pire until it crumbled, but the corruption within that 
blasted it at the very core until it was honey-combed 
with rottenness. There was no sudden novelty, no 
inexpressible up-rising in the French Revolution. Its 
most fantastic phenomena were terribly logical. The 
red-mouthed volcano had long been rumbling under 
the soil, and in the fiery lava that overwhelmed the 
altar and the throne might have been descried the 
strata of centuries of abuse. It was a lie long hidden, 
made terribly manifest, that perished before the mob 
of the Bastile, and under the guillotine of Robespierre. 
And the Revolution in turn was defeated when its 
practical falsehoods broke through its primary truth. 

And this sublime logic runs through the entire chain 
of human events. All history is but the construction 
of a syllogism. It is the demonstration of God's con- 
trol over nations as over you and me. And is there 
anything more indicative of that control than the pro- 
cesses through which a nation must pass ? For a time 
it may seem to swing clear of moral sanctions — to 
grow and develop by its felicities of climate and posi- 



THE LAW OF MANIFESTATION. 



51 



tion, by its material resources, and often even then by 
the positive truth and virtue which it inherits. But 
by and by some crisis occurs which puts its stability to 
the proof, and reveals whatever hidden vice it cherishes. 
The wrong and the right will not work together. 
Good and evil renew their ancient conflict. Compro- 
mises are broken, and bonds of parchment become as 
tow. The battle may be postponed — -it cannot be pre- 
vented. There must, for the one or the other, be vic- 
tory or defeat. The right must assert its abrogated 
supremacy, or the wrong will usurp its place and cor- 
rupt and strangle it. It is no mere work of men or of 
policies ; it is God's own law, that there is nothing hid 
which shall not be manifested. Sometime in the life 
of a people, the wrong will show itself as the wrong. 

On the other hand, let us recognize the hope and 
the encouragement which appear in the fact that what 
there is of evil in a nation's life shall be manifested. 
It is not necessarily the most terrible crisis when evil 
is most apparent. In that case, it depends upon the 
fact whether the evil rises up for conquest, or rises up 
for judgment — whether it is apparent because it has 
thoroughly tainted and covered the public life, or be- 
cause it is seen in a clearer light of the national rea- 
son and conscience. An evil may be made manifest 
because it has actually grown larger, or because we 
look upon it with purer eyes. In individual instances, 
we know that they are the best men, not the worst, 
■who are the most conscious of sin. Thus with epochs 
and communities. There may be no more sin, but 
there may be a more vivid consciousness of it. 



52 



SELECT SERMONS. 



Moreover, the manifestation of national evils may be 
regarded more or less hopefully, in proportion as a 
nation is in its vigorous youth, or in its decrepitude. 
When corruption broods in its very heart, and has 
sunk into all its life — when the entire organism is 
only a concrete mass of vice, and the more you expose 
it the more corrupt it seems — that is indeed a terrible 
manifestation of what has been hidden. But when 
the evil is incidental to its raw and incomplete state — 
when it is the effervescence and upheaval of elements 
that have not yet become settled — then should we be 
thankful that it is manifested, and hope that in this 
manifestation it may be arrested and removed. 

The application of these remarks to our own condi 
tion as a people, is sufficiently obvious. I only ask — 
did our fathers mean what they said when, invoking 
Providence, they declared the Rights of man, and 
with their own blood consecrated this new world to 
be the abode of liberty, the refuge of all nations ? 
Doubtless, good seed was sown in that early time. 
But has nothing evil, though hidden for a while, been 
mixed with it ? If so, there may come a crisis, there 
must come a crisis, nay, perhaps there has come a 
crisis, when this question must be answered ; when 
Divine Providence will inquire concerning us — -" Did 
I not sow good seed in this field ? Whence then hath 
it tares ?" For the tares will show themselves as well 
as the wheat, and days of trial are days of revelation. 
Through the life of nations also runs the Divine, the 
relentless Law — " There is nothing hid that shall not 
be manifested." 



THE LAW OF MANIFESTATION". 



53 



III. I remark, finally, that the statement in the 
text declares the great Law of Providence, working 
throughout the world. That which is hid shall be 
made known — the Good, the Evil. How glorious 
and consoling the thought ! There is no Wrong that 
shall always wear its false triumph, and be covered 
with specious masks. There is no Eight that shall 
be forever trampled down. Measure not God's plan 
by the scale of human vision, nor doubt the Benefi- 
cence that broods even now behind some vail of mys- 
tery. If we confine our attention to a mere segment 
of space or time, the universe may seem to us ungov- 
erned. If from the great chain we sever this or that 
special fact, it may seem mzVgoverned. A single leaf 
of the rock) book beneath our feet, conveys a very 
different impression from the entire volume of the 
globe. To a zoophyte nature, to a saurian conscious- 
ness, the destruction of its particular epoch may have 
told a different story from that which, in the light of 
geological science, we read in the rounded whole. 
Temporary losses, mortal ills, — do they of themselves 
furnish the key to God's great Plan, or will they not 
read far differently looked upon from the immortal 
world, in the light of His completed Process ? 

My brethren, are there indeed inexplicable evils in 
this world ? Are there mysteries which sorely try our 
faitli ? Remember, God shows us no finished system, 
but is now and always working. " There is nothing 
hid, which shall not be manifested." Let this be our 
assurance. Let it be your assurance, son or daughter 
of sorrow, in the midst of your tribulation. Believe 



54 



SELECT SERMONS. 



this, ye whom public evils fill with doubt and dread. 
Is there anything more inspiring than the thought that 
what we see is but a very little portion of what realty 
is ? Are we not thankful that so much is indeed 
hidden — so much from which light will yet undoubtedly 
stream — and that even all the excellence we behold, 
is a small thing compared with the glory yet to be re- 
vealed ? Oh ! if what we see were indeed all that ac- 
tually is — if this path of trial made up the entire 
scope of our being, and that wall of graves were the 
boundary line, then indeed how often should we droop 
and despair ! 

How much of our hope and our strength comes from 
this fact, that " there is nothing hid, which shall not 
be manifested !" How grand the thought that exist- 
ence is both a mystery and a perpetual Revelation — 
that it is like the beautiful process, already alluded to, 
of " the blade, the ear, and the full corn in the ear." 
Nay, we ought to be thankful for this Law of manifes- 
tation even in respect to our most secret sins. Let us 
be thankful that there is that which probes them, 
which stirs them up in their dark concealments, which 
reveals and which punishes them. We ought to be 
glad that it is so in public affairs. Better to see the 
evil and face it, and so get rid of it, than to deny it, 
and dodge it, and attempt to cover it up. 

And let us rejoice, I say, once more, because there 
is withal so much of joy and beauty and goodness yet 
to be made known. In the light of this fact the pa- 
triot can endure, the philanthropist toil, and the suf- 
ferer for conscience' sake, even as of old, lay down his 



THE LAW OF MANIFESTATION. 



55 



very life. So the mother parts with her babe. So 
the dearest relationships can be surrendered. So we 
can look upon this mystery and shadow of death not 
as a final limit, but as a wondrous vail behind which 
brood things that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, 
neither hath the heart of man conceived. So we can 
lift its darkened folds and pass beyond. So we can 
do our work and bear our lot in ' the world. For, 
knowing that " there is nothing hid, which shall not 
be manifested," there is inspiration for our action, 
there is assurance for our peace. 



IV. 



CHANGES IN LIFE. 

"And by chance there came down a certain priest that way ; and 
when he saw him, he passed by on the other side." — Luke x. 31. 

The story of the Good Samaritan not only furnishes 
a direct answer to the Lawyer's question, " Who is my 
neighbor," but unfolds in a large degree the very essence 
and peculiarity of the Christian religion. Thus, there 
is not only illustrated that noble truth, which even a 
heathen poet might utter, that all men are kindred, 
and no one is foreign to any other, but how is that 
truth in the narrative before us intensified and conse- 
crated by that profounder interpretation which it has 
received only from the cross of Christ ! For here it 
appears, that not only are the claims of our common 
nature to be answered under ordinary conditions of 
sympathy, but the most stubborn prejudices must melt 
away before the Supreme Law of Love, and even an 
enemy is to be blest. 

You will observe that in the representation of our 
Saviour, it was not only a man rendering assistance to 
a suffering fellow-man, but as seems likely a Samaritan 
succoring a Jew. Or if the nationality of the abused 

[56] 



CHANCES IN LIFE. 



57 



wayfarer is not clear, the generous benefactor in the 
case was at least one whom the very lawyer who put 
the question held iD abhorrence. And thus is revealed 
the spirit of that Universal Religion which overs weeps 
all external distinctions between men, and shatters 
the middle walls of partition. 

Another feature of our religion brought out in this 
narrative, exhibits it as a Religion of the Spirit, and 
not of the mere Letter. It shows the superiority of 
love and kindly ministration over all lip-service and 
ceremonial punctiliousness. We cannot doubt which 
was the sacrifice most acceptable to God — which was 
the core and essence of all genuine faith and worship 
— the legal performance that the priest might ac- 
complish, or the human help which the Samaritan 
bestowed. 

In this comprehensive narrative which fell from the 
lips of Jesus, we catch the suggestion of his religion 
as a Religion of Principle — not a religion only of 
times and 'places, not a religion coming smooth up to 
the requirement of what was written, and there ceas_ 
ing to act and to live — an arbitrary and mercantile 
religion, so much done for so much received — a per 
centage or tax paid for a policy of insurance made 
good in Heaven — but a religion of vital goodness, al- 
ways flowing in its own spontaneous abundance, and 
leaping forward to fill every opportunity. A religion 
associated not only with the Temple and the Sabbath, 
but with the week-day journey and the beaten road, 
and humanity wounded and bleeding by the wayside. 
The priest's religion might be ready for the set season 



58 



SELECT SERMONS. 



and the established form, but it was not ready for the 
sudden and pregnant Chance. And this last remark 
suggests the particular use which I propose to make of 
the language of the text in connection with the narra- 
tive before us. 

" And by chance there came doivn a certain priest 
that way ; and ivhen he saw him he passed by on the 
other side." 

" Chances in Life, and how we should meet them," 
will be the subject of my present discourse. And the 
first thing to be considered is the idea which this word 
Chance itself suggests to us. In the present discourse 
we may regard it as presenting a two-fold definition. 
We may speak of it as indicating an Occurrence, and 
as indicating an Opportunity. 

For the purpose of right thought, however, in the 
action of daily life, it is well to ask in the outset for a 
more comprehensive definition than that which has 
just been given. It is well to ask whether there is any 
such thing as Chance, in the common acceptation of 
that term. I say " common acceptation," and yet it 
might be difficult to define what it is that is commonly 
accepted. 

When we speak of " Chances," surely we do not 
mean that anything in this universe is absolutely 
fortuitous. Things occur without human foresight, 
but is there anything that occurs without foresight 
somewhere. Nay, we must be cautious how, in using 
this term, we limit the field of human responsibil- 
ity and control. That thing which has come about 
by chance — that thing which has happened to you — is 



CHANCES IN LIFE. 



59 



it positively without any agency of your own? That 
turn of ill-fortune, that stroke of disease which may 
come upon you, that position of temptation and of 
peril in which at any time you have been placed — are 
you sure that you had no hand in producing it — that 
you might not have prevented or modified it ? Ah ! 
how much in this world is charged to chance or fortune, 
or veiled under a more devout name, and accorded to 
Providence, while, when we come to look honestly into 
affairs, we find it to be a debt of our own accumulation, 
and one which we must inevitably pay. 

It is all Chance, is it, that the rushing car plunges 
from the track, or the rotten bridge breaks under the 
loaded train, or the worn-out boiler explodes and slays 
its hundreds ? Is it indeed a chance beyond the skill 
of the watchful eye, the steady hand, the sober brain, 
the honest heart ? How dare reckless indifference, or 
greedy monopoly, look upon these windrows of mangled 
and bleeding men, and call them " Victims of Chance ? " 
How dare any man reckon up the sum of prodigality, 
or idleness, or vice, and bemoan his fate as a poor tool 
of circumstances, a shuttlecock of fortune ? 

Let us be cautious, I say, what we mean by this 
word Chance, and whether we understand it as some- 
thing that is beyond even human control. Let us split 
open, throw away and turn out of doors the miserable 
fallacy that " Life is a Game of Chance." Even if 
things around you were all chance-directed, and hurled 
at you by the hands of a blind, invisible fate ; even 
though you floated in the whirlpool of savage necessi- 
ty, what are you — what is the mind within you, that it, 



60 



SELECT SERMONS. 



too, should be tossed and washed about as if it were 
only a chance-product also ? Are you not conscious 
of an element within you that can cling to its purpose, 
and maintain its integrity, and be sublimely victorious 
over all circumstances ? 

But, doubtless, things do occur beyond all human 
control, at least far beyond that point where we can 
trace the outlines of our own immediate agency. It 
was by Chance, so far as the priest in the narrative 
was concerned, that the poor stranger lay stripped and 
bruised in his way. But in all that vast region of 
mystery that stretches beyond the sphere of man's 
agency, beyond the sphere of his knowledge and dis- 
cernment — in all this universe, there is no such thing 
as mere Chance. There is no such thing as accident. 
We begin to acknowledge this — to set it down as a 
fixed and solid axiom in the material world. There is 
no break of order, not the least slip or cranny there. 
Not a hair falls without a law, not a sparrow really 
wanders in its flight, not a winged seed is blown by 
.unguided winds. Every demonstration of science re- 
futes this conception of Chance, and routes it from its 
lurking-place among these forms and forces. Through 
every rift of discovery some seeming anomaly drops 
out of the darkness, and falls as a golden link in the 
great chain of order. The electric spark, apparently 
so capricious, darting in the sudden lightning, and 
playing in fearful mystery, reveals at length its regular 
and beautiful laws, and becomes pliant to the human 
hands that are weaving with its subtle threads a web 
of world-wide harmony. The comet, so strange, so 



CHANCES IK LIFE. 



61 



fearful, rushing with such a sweep through space, and 
hanging over us in the night-sky like a blazing scimi- 
tar, in its far, trackless journey measuring the life-time 
of our generations, moves by the beat of the clock, 
and fulfils its cycle as obediently as a rain-drop or a 
flower. Oh ! in all the realm of nature, there is no 
such thing as Chance — no accident. 

And yet, there are men to whom this entire system 
of things seems but the offspring of Chance, and who 
quote this silent, unbroken regularity as a proof of 
their interpretation. " Give me," said one of these, 
" enough letters of the Greek alphabet, and an infinite 
number of throws, and I will agree to throw the Iliad 
of Homer" — as if Chance could have produced, or 
could sustain this vast array of order, in which no 
Chance ever again appears. 

Is it not a matter of wonder that any man can look 
upon this exquisite arrangement, this great and ever- 
unfolding scheme of harmony, without a jar in all its 
million wheels, and fail to recognize the controlling 
presence of an All-upholding, All-pervading Mind? 
But if it is thus the tendency of investigation to elim- 
inate Chance from the entire domain of the natural 
world, may we not believe that even in those condi- 
tions of human life where we refer to it, it is only a 
( convenient term to hide our ignorance — just as the 
phrases " Laws of Nature," " gravitation," " electrici- 
ty," are convenient names for what we do not know ? 
Surely we may conclude that those occurrences which 
we describe by this word " Chance," belong at least to 
a moral system whose relation wc cannot now fully 



62 



SELECT SERMONS. 



discern, but where all is purpose and order, as certain- 
ly as in the material universe. We see there how 
many things seem fortuitous until they are interpreted 
by some large array of facts, or by some comprehensive 
law. 

And so, life's chances, if they betray no other fea- 
ture of regularity, at least reveal this much : they 
show themselves ranged in connection with our spir- 
itual discipline. There is nothing that occurs to 
us in our daily existence, not even in the smallest 
transaction, that is not a source of moral inspiration, 
and does not furnish occasion for moral effort. And 
this conclusion brings me to the second head of this 
discourse — to the consideration of the Chances of Life, 
not merely as occurrences but as opportunities. 

That was the manner in which the priest may have 
regarded his encounter with the forlorn stranger at 
the roadside. " By chance he came down that way," 
and he may have accepted that Chance merely as an 
occurrence, and passed by on the other side, to forget 
it as suddenly as it had happened to him. What was 
the fact of a man stripped by robbers and left in the 
road, in proportion to the work he had to do ! What 
was the possibility of making an unfortunate creature 
more comfortable, in comparison with the dignity of 
his office ! What was the task of binding up wounds, 
pouring in oil and wine, to the service of the Temple 
and the duties of the ministry ! So it is that men, 
limiting the demands of duty to set occasions, limiting 
their conception of religion to a round of ceremonies, 
in the things that come by chance recognize nothing 



CHANCES IN LIFE. 



63 



but an Occurrence, and neglect an Opportunity. So it 
is that one ordained to be a minister of Christ contracts 
into a 'priest, giving expression only to set forms and 
phrases, and uttering no fresh, free words for the way- 
side realities of life, the interests of the broad world, 
for trampled Right, and the image of the Creator 
desecrated in bruised and bleeding man. So the church 
of the living God, moving so stately on, fierce against 
heresies, and launching its rebukes at sin in gene- 
ral, passes by on the other side, leaving crushed 
humanity to pine and perish, were it not for some 
unconsecrated Samaritan who brings the bandages and 
pours the oil and wine. Oh ! embodiment of Divine 
truth and power on earth, claiming the ivork of Christ 
■ — do not merely speak his words, do not be merely the 
body of Jesus, but pray and strive for more of his 
spirit. Bear with you not only the ecclesiastical 
utensils, but the annointing humanities ; widen your 
grasp, enlarge your efforts ; take in the present needs, 
the living claims ; in homes of poverty, in dens of 
shame, in prisons and slave-shambles, proceed to do 
the church's work of serving and honoring Christ, or 
hear him say, " Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of 
the least of these, ye did it not to me.' 7 

In coming down by chance that way, the priest 
found only an Occurrence, and neglected a glorious 
Opportunity. My friends, how is it with ourselves ? 
How do we meet the chances which occur to us in life ? 
I ask you, is it not true that they unfold some of our 
noblest opportunities ? " Man devises his way, but the 
Lord directs his steps.'' Every morning we may lay 



64 



SELECT SERMONS. 



our course, but every day we drift in currents of 
Providence, that bring us into unexpected contacts. 
In unknown events our virtue is tried, our souls 
summoned to their possibilities, and uncalculated things 
break in upon us, and present the touchstone of 
character. We pray " 0 Lord, lead us not into 
temptation," but when and where shall we claim the 
answer ? Just in the time we set ? Just in the way 
we foresaw ? Will it make its deliberate proposi- 
tion, and we be all panoplied in adamantine virtue, 
ready to meet and repel it? Or, will it come by 
Chance, and trip us in an instant ? Will it be exactly 
the sin we expect by which to-day we may fall ? and 
will it look to us as we thought it would ? Or, will it 
be masked in some chance device that will disguise it 
until it is too late? The devil has been painted 
swarthy, cloven-footed, horned, and hideous. Do we 
expect to see him in that shape ? Oh, surely it would 
be better for us, if he did come in that shape ! The 
trouble is, the devil never does come in that shape. 
He comes by Chance, with unregistered signals, and in 
all sorts of counterfeit presentments. 

We may have virtue enough — religion enough — 
for set-times and Sundays. Have we enough for 
this crowded, thick-swarming, busy, every-day world? 
The great test of principle is to be ready for chances 
— never to be taken unawares. Here are the pit- 
falls of vast ruin, opening suddenly by the way. In 
this world, wicked as it is, what is the proportion of 
those, think you, who have sat down and planned, and 
pondered, and firmly resolvxl on their evil schemes, 



CHANCES IN LIFE. 



65 



as compared with those who have fallen suddenly into 
sin ? Does it not make you tremble to think how in 
this very city there are so many of the young who are 
in danger, who are in great danger ; because, while 
they may have an educated respect for rectitude — a 
general stock — too often, alas ! mere fancy stock — of 
good principles — they have nothing to keep them from 
being taken by Chance ? For it is by Chance they 
are taken ; it is by Chance the tempting word is 
spoken ; by Chance the game, the glass, the wile of 
harlotry is displayed. 

Ask yonder fool of appetite — the poor, degraded 
drunkard — if he set out for that ? Was it for that lie 
left his quiet country home, and his old mother, whose 
poor heart was put to rest long ago ? Was it for that 
he put forth every aspiration in his first struggle of 
life ? No ! It was Chance that tripped him. Think 
you that if he could have seen it all, circling in the 
ruby coloring of the first glass, he would not have 
dashed it from him like a serpent? But it was Chance 
that moved him, and over that Chance he has stumbled 
into ruin. 

Once more I ask you, are you aware of the oppor- 
tunities for sin that lurk in Chance ? Are you ready 
for them ? For there is the test of a man. Some one 
has said, that what one mutters in his dreams will 
betray his inner life, and show what he really is. But 
dreams come from a multitude of cares, and may after 
all only indicate what lias been pressing on the surface 
of a man's nature. But see how a man behaves him- 
self in little daily instances, in the common intercourse 



66 



SELECT SERMONS. 



of life, away from the church — away from the fore- 
seen occasions, when Chance leaps upon him and 
solicits him for good or for evil. Many a man who 
might walk over burning plough-shares into heaven, 
stumbles from the path because there is gravel in his 
shoes. Little irritations may ruffle and inflame a 
spirit that would keep serene in the front of great in- 
juries. The temptation is not here where you are 
reading about it or praying about it. It is down in 
your shop among bales and boxes, ten-penny nails and 
sand-paper. Take, for instance, a single principle, and 
try its depth and substance. What kind of benevo- 
lence and love to your fellow-men have you ? Is it a 
Sabbath-day and subscription benevolence, a charity 
sermon and linen cambric benevolence ? Or does it 
always sit in the door- way of your heart, like the com- 
passion of the merciful Jesus, ready for bleeding, ap- 
pealing, suffering humanity right by the wayside ? 

Perhaps the priest in the narrative was a charitable 
man after his kind, and had laid up as he thought a good 
deal of treasure in heaven, while it could not be found 
that he had scattered any on earth ; but " by Chance 
he came down that way" where the poor groaning 
traveller lay, " and when he saw him, he passed by on 
the other side." 

But let us not consider merely the occasions for 
wrong-doing, for failure or neglect, that spring upon 
us in the Chances of life — let us realize also the 
grandeur and fullness of such opportunities. 

How many of the best things come by Chance. Let 
a man only resolve to be true at all times, and can he 



CHANCES IN LIFE. 



67 



calculate the effect of his loyalty at any time? How 
often do we " build wiser than we know." Striking 
for the occasion, for the immediate truth or duty of 
the hour, men have struck for all ages. It is God's 
work we do whenever we perform the right thing, let 
what will oppose itself ; and who can limit the uses 
which God thus makes of His instruments ? He does 
not require great things to effect His great ends ; not 
always a battle or a treaty, a mission or a martyrdom. 
Your little act of faith and fortitude, He may take it 
up and weave it conspicuously among the splendors of 
His unfolding plan. The kind word you have spoken, 
the honest advice you gave, the helping hand you have 
stretched out to lift up the wayfarer, who shall measure 
or limit its widening circle on the waves of spiritual 
influence — on the sea of time ? 

But this is not the motive that is to determine your 
action. It is enough for you, at any da}^ or hour, that 
the chance demands it and the thing is right and good. 
Oh ! let us not wait for great occasions, or act for 
ostentatious ends. Take the chance that occurs, and 
make the most and best of it. 

" Only give me a chance/ 7 1 think I hear somebody 
say, " and I will do this thing or that." Ah ! it is not 
the great occasion, but the great spirit that crowns 
and glorifies our work. And this we may have in any 
condition. Therefore do not stand whining and proph- 
esying. You have your chance such as it is. If it 
is cramped and adverse, so much the grander is any 
worthy achievement that may come of it. If it does 
not give you an opportunity to do much of anything 



68 



SELECT SERMONS. 



else, it gives you an opportunity to be loyal to God, 
and to the spirit that is in you. No condition is un- 
favorable to virtue — where virtue is. If you cannot 
do anything else in your condition, you can at least by 
your faith and patience live there and he there, and by 
your faith and patience all the more nobly live and be 
— or in God's appointed way you can die there, more 
truly to live. The best men are not those who have 
waited for chances — but taken them, besieged the 
chance, conquered the chance, and made the chance 
their servitor. It is not instruments God is engaged 
in fabricating in this world ; it is not steam engines 
or electric telegraphs, or high stages of civilization. 
It is men. It is not splendors, principalities and 
powers that mark the grades of being and determine 
the footprints of progress — it is the Mind, the soul of 
man. Wherever that lives, wherever that acts, there is 
a Chance, there is an opportunity, and the great thing 
is not what we find in life, but what we do in it and 
bring out of it. And while we are waiting for great 
chances to come we may be doing injustice to the 
chances that are. You do not know how rich your 
chance may be until you try it. There high upon the 
bank rests a plain, uninteresting stone. The cottager 
before whose door it sleeps has seen it year after year 
all his lifetime, and yet it has been nothing to him 
but a plain block of stone. By and by there comes a 
philosopher — a clear seer into things. He examines 
it, and on every side, without and within, finds it to 
be a book of revelation, containing vast cycles and 
histories of God's working. It enfolds the relics of 



CHANCES IN LIFE. 



69 



long-perished life. He hears in it, as it were, the 
wash of pre-Adamite seas and the murmur of primeval 
woods. It is all instinct with pictured movement and 
glorious forms of Divine order and beauty. All this 
he finds in the common and homely stone. Your con- 
dition, my friend, may be as uninteresting and as 
barren as the boulder of sand-stone by the road-side, 
but do not neglect its opportunities. Look into them, 
search them, see what God has planted therein. Young 
man ! when you step upon the threshold of life, take 
your Chance and do nobly with it. Poverty-smitten 
man, borne down by calamity ! there is much chance 
in your condition ; there is a chance to trust, a chance 
to pray, a chance to rise sublimely over every spiritual 
obstacle and be a conqueror. In sickness, in weakness, 
on the verge of the grave, still there is your chance, — a 
chance to be, a chance to endure, to trust, to grow 
upward in unfolding and aspiring truth and nobleness. 

My hearers, here is the way to be religious, and to 
manifest our religion. It is to take the spirit of Jesus, 
the spirit of faith and love, and with its active opera- 
tion fill up all chances as they come. The difficulty 
with men is, not that they are resolved not to be re- 
ligious, but they are waiting for the Chance to become 
so. Day after day comes and departs, and yet they 
are still undecided because their Chance has not ar- 
rived. To be religious, you must be religious now in 
the work that calls upon you this instant. Again, 
others are waiting for a set opportunity to exercise 
their religion — they want special times, places, limits, 
for it. This is all well if they do not confine their re- 



70 



SELECT SERMONS. 



ligion too closely. Some men exercise their religion 
for a little while in the morning, or in the evening ; 
walk it out for a few moments and let it take the air, 
or give it a turn on Sundays ; but this is all. What 
an emaciated, dyspeptic, valetudinarian sort of re- 
ligion is this ! This great gospel is not a cramped, 
feeble, narrow thing of times and seasons, but wher- 
ever God can be worshipped or humanity be served, 
or the spirit of love manifested, there is the work of 
true religion. And what glorious opportunities there 
are for thus serving our God in the every-day inter- 
course of the world ! What opportunities for com- 
muning with Him in his infinite mercy, and feeling the 
hem of his garment in His daily providence ! What 
an opportunity for seeing Him in the great Temple of 
Nature where all is loveliness and sublimity, and his 
glorious works above and around look down upon you, 
bearing the impress of the Father's face. These are 
but the chances of a single day ; but how numerous 
and how pregnant would they become if we would but 
set our hearts upon their discovery. 

Yes, even here in this house to-night you have your 
Chance. How many have entered here by Chance — • 
or if they have come with set purpose, the Word 
which has met them here, not foreknown, has met them 
by Chance. Not my poor, fallible words, but the sug- 
gestions of this lesson which fell from the lips of 
Christ. And this is a Chance that will be neglected 
or used. You will cast from you the teachings of the 
hour as you go from this house, or you will treasure 
them up, and make them an element in your deepest 



CHANCES IN LIFE. 



71 



life. The priest in the narrative neglected Ms oppor- 
tunity. And we know how rich and great an oppor- 
tunity it was. Do not neglect yours. Neglect not 
this nor any Chance of good in life. For through 
the doors of Chance, we pass into illimitable con- 
sequences. 



V. 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 

Behold the fowls of the air : for they sow not, neither do they reap, 
nor gather into barns; yet your Heavenly Father feedeth them. 
Are ye not much better than they ? 

Matthew vi. 26. 

There are certain problems which can have only a 
practical solution. They must rest finally upon the 
decision of common sense. We cannot hold them in 
any consistent theory. We cannot disentangle them 
by any metaphysical analysis. But the moment we 
adopt our spontaneous convictions, and act simply as 
we feel, there is no real difficulty in the way. Men 
have fallen into error by thinking too much, as well 
as by thinking too little. They have over-reasoned 
and over-refined, and, without any satisfactory result, 
beat about in that uncertain sea of speculation which 
limits and exceeds all thought. 

In the meantime they have acted, in respect to those 
very questions, as upon grounds of the utmost assur- 
ance. For instance, there is the old question with 

[72] 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 



73 



which philosophers have puzzled themselves and others, 
from time immemorial, — the question whether there is 
any real, substantial world external to ourselves^ or 
whether it is not all a phantasm of our own minds * 

It is extremely difficult, by formulas of logic or met- 
aphysics, to prove that there is, — difficult to find the 
bridge which shall connect and authenticate the two 
facts ; and yet no man is troubled with doubts upon 
this subject in his conduct. He lives and moves with 
reference to a world without, as well as to himself, 
and feels it to be a fact coordinate with his own con- 
sciousness. 

So is it with the great truth proclaimed in the text 
— the truth of a Divine Providence. If you look at it 
simply as a theory, and consider all its relations, there 
is perplexity in it : it springs a problem which no rea- 
soning of ours can ever settle. But every man, unless 
he is that rare thing an absolute atheist, in one form 
or another believes this doctrine of a Providence, — 
feels it to be true, — acts as if it were true. "When he 
sets himself down in a sharp, metaphysical mood, he is 
perplexed by queries respecting general and special 
Providence, or by the apparent antagonism between 
the Divine Sovereignty and human free-will. And 
yet, who does not hear these words of the Saviour 
with glad consent of heart — perceiving that, in the 
truth of this declaration, the universe is bright and 
harmonious, and that, if it were not true, all would be 
dark indeed ? Who does not find his deepest convic- 
tions responding to this appeal : " Behold the fowls 
of the air : for they sow not. neither do they reap, 
4 



74 



SELECT SERMONS. 



nor gather into barns ; yet your Heavenly Father 
feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they ? " 

If one wants merely to give his intellect gymnastic 
exercise, and train it to feats of agility, he may specu- 
late upon the questions How ? and Why ? which this 
doctrine of a Divine Providence opens up ; but if he 
wants sanction for conduct, or incentive for effort, or 
comfort in trouble, he draws back from these abstrac- 
tions, and applies his common sense, not to cause, but 
to phenomena — to the practical facts as they stand be- 
fore him. 

Thus, for instance, there is no practical difficulty 
between " special " and " general" in that conception 
of Providence which we feel to be true. We know 
but little of the Divine Method, but still we can believe 
that God works for general ends, and yet works spe- 
cifically ; directs His tender care and love upon you 
and me. "We can believe that He works by law, with 
stupendous regularity, and yet can touch all the issues 
of our humanity — can succor its weakness, direct its 
forth-goings, and answer its prayers — even as He 
moves planets and systems in their orbits, and at the 
same time feeds the little wild-bird in its nest. 

Thus, too, while we hold the doctrine of a Provi- 
dence that overrules all things, we escape the sweeping 
result of Fatalism. Of course, such a doctrine of 
Providence is identical with the doctrine of Divine 
Sovereignty. How can God provide for all issues, if 
He does not foresee them ? and what if He did foresee 
them, if He had not final control over them ? If some 
unforeseen contingency should occur — if some ungov- 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 



75 



ernable agent should slip in, the universe might lose 
its balance, the sparrow might lose its food. In any 
consistent conception of Providence, the band of Di- 
vine Sovereignty must stretch around all the oscilla- 
tions of matter, and all the movements of mind. 

But then, what becomes of man's free-agency ? If 
God has this foresight and omnipotence, how am I to 
blame for sin ? How can I help it ? May I not silence 
the rebuke of conscience, and throw the responsibility 
upon the Deity, and so draw immoral comfort from the 
doctrine ? 

Now, I say, we may speculate here until the end of 
our days, and gain nothing tangible in this way ; but 
the practical answer is in our own consciousness. That 
assures us of our freedom just as clearly as we are 
convinced of the Divine Sovereignty. 

In the last analysis, we know nothing about God ex- 
cept through qualities existing in ourselves. Nature 
and Revelation make Him known to us, but they appeal 
to something within us kindred to the attributes which 
they declare. If we had no conception of origination 
and construction in our own experience, we could not 
appreciate the argument for design so irresistibly 
forced upon us now, wherever we turn our eyes. If 
we had no sympathies, we should know nothing about 
God's love. If we had no moral nature, we could not 
comprehend His justice. How, then, do we get a con- 
ception of the Divine Freedom, unless we have a con- 
sciousness of freedom in our own nature ? We may 
say that He is infinite, and we are finite ; but that 
distinction pertains to degree, not to kind. Our intel- 



76 



SELECT SERMONS. 



ligence is finite, and our love, and our justice ; but 
still it is intelligence, love, justice, kindred to the 
Divine. So our freedom is the freedom of finite beings ; 
but still it is freedom, and involves the responsibilities 
of freedom — involves choice, and duty, and blame for 
wrong-doing. 

Our consciousness of free-will in ourselves, I say 
then, enables us to comprehend the fact of freedom in 
the Divine nature ; and this very consciousness stands 
before any theorizing that might lead to a mere fatal- 
ism, and forces us to acknowledge our moral responsi- 
bility. No matter what we may say about the Divine 
control, every man knows that he is free to act right 
or wrong, and feels himself to blame when he takes 
the latter alternative. And, I say, while this simple 
fact of consciousness may not clear up the perplexity 
which the merely speculative intellect finds in endeav- 
oring to reconcile Divine Sovereignty with human 
free-agency, it is the common-sense key which unlocks 
the door of practical action. 

How does this doctrine of Providence affect you, 
and me, and everybody ? Do we feel that it encour- 
ages wickedness, and justifies sin ? The Saviour pro- 
claims this beautiful truth — that God feeds the birds 
of the air, and numbers the hairs of our heads ; and 
we feel that He pervades all things, upholds all things, 
leads all forward in His own sublime plan. But, as 
the thought rushes upon us, as we ponder it, and let it 
beam in upon the mysterious passages of our life, does 
it seem to inspire us with the desire of wrong-doing ? 
Does it seem to give license to the same ? No : I 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 



77 



undertake to say, there never was a man who entered 
into the spirit of the text, and felt like applying the 
doctrine which it contains to a wrong purpose. 

No man ever felt as a sinner, in his sin, like appeal- 
ing to it as a sanction for his sin. The bad man is 
conscious of this fact of a Providence working in all 
things, but he is conscious of it as a fact working not 
for him, but against him — a serene benignity with 
which the current of his life does not run parallel ; a 
pervading Presence that startles him with its search- 
ing inspection ; an adjusting process that never over- 
looks the wrong. The murderer, in his discharge of 
passion, or his lust of malice, does not rest comfort- 
ably on this doctrine of Divine Providence ; nor the 
thief in his secresy ; nor the libertine in his plot ; nor 
the usurper on the throne. The tide of Divine Sover- 
eignty is, in his experience , a head-tide. It flows 
against him, not with him. (Joel is an uncomfortable 
thought to him. He had rather there were none. 
Atheism, chance, a dead world-machinery without 
plan, without vindication, suits a bad man much better 
than the beautiful truth which Jesus illustrated by the 
fowls of the air and the lilies of the field. 

You perceive, then, how our practical consciousness 
holds to the doctrine proclaimed in the text, and at 
the same time escapes those perplexities which occur 
to the merely speculative intellect. Our consciousness, 
I say, holds this doctrine of Divine Providence. It is 
the spontaneous conviction of almost every man — the 
conviction not only that there is a God, but one who 
cares for us, who sustains us, who ministers unto us 



78 



SELECT SERMONS. 



continually. One who has a plan, and carries it surely 
forward ; whose purpose the great universe fulfils, 
running on golden wheels ; in whose embrace is gath- 
ered up each individual life ; whose intention unfolds 
in the steady beat of universal law, in the falling of a 
leaf, and of a hair ; to whom we may confidently lift 
the appeal of our sorrow and our hope ; upon whom 
we may patiently rely ; but who rebukes our indolence, 
and from whom, in our guilt, we shrink in terror and 
in shame. Deeper than our theories and our disputes, 
is an intuitive faith that responds to the teaching of 
Jesus : " Behold the fowls of the air : for they sow 
not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns ; yet 
your Heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not 
much better than they ? " 

• Having thus seen how profoundly in our conviction 
this doctrine of Divine Providence is fixed, let us con- 
sider some of the indications without us which con- 
firm its truth. 

The most apparent of these — the grandest scale on 
which the operation of a Providence appears — is the 
entire system of the natural world. It is true that 
here is the field from which, in theory, many seem to 
exclude the notion of a Providence. They speak of 
Nature as a stupendous machine, wound up and run- 
ning by its own vitality — an automaton, which, by a 
kind of clock-work, simulates a life and an intelli- 
gence that are really absent from it. Or, if they do 
not deny the operation of a Divine Providence, they 
refer to what are termed " the laws of nature," in such 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 



79 



a manner as to shut off the immediate agency of 
God. 

But what is a law of nature, except a fixed way in 
which the Creator works? The finest element that 
the chemist can detect ; the subtile, immaterial force, 
whatever it may be, — is not the laiv, but merely an 
expression of the law. And in the last analysis, we 
cannot separate law from the operation of intelligent 
will. I do not say that God acts only through nature, 
or that God is identical with nature ; but in a pro- 
found sense it is true that Nature is Providence. 
God, who in essence is distinct from His works, is 
perpetually in His works. And so every night and 
every day His Providence is illustrated before us. 
His beneficence streams out from the morning sun, 
and His love looks down upon us from the starry eyes 
of midnight. It is His solicitude that wraps us in 
the air, and the pressure of His hand, so to speak, 
that keeps our pulses beating. Oh ! it is a great thing 
to realize that the Divine Power is always working ; 
that nature, in every valve and every artery, is full of 
the Presence of God. It is a great thing to conceive 
of Providence as both General and Special, compre- 
hending immensity in its plan, yet sustaining the frail- 
est filament of being and elaborating the humblest form. 

Take up, as much as you can, in your imagination, 
the great circle of existence. How wide its sweep ! 
how immeasurable its currents ! And are there some 
who tell us that God cares only for the grand whole, 
and has no regard for details — that this is beneath the 
majesty of His nature, the dignity of His scheme ? 



80 



SELECT SERMONS, 



I say, again, that Nature is Providence : and this 
tells us a different story. For it is full of minute min- 
istrations, as though the Divine solicitude were con- 
centrated upon the insect or the worm — so that what- 
ever thing you observe, it seems as though the universe 
were constructed and arranged for that alone. And 
the sublimities of God's glory beam upon us in His 
care for the little, as well as in His adjustments of the 
great ; in the comfort which surrounds the little wood- 
bird, and blesses the denizen of a single leaf, as well 
as in the happiness that streams through the hierarchies 
of being that cluster and swarm in yon forests of the 
firmament ; in the skill displayed in the spider's eye, 
in the beauty that quivers upon the butterfly's wing, as 
in the splendors that emboss the chariot wheels of 
night, or glitter in the sandals of the morning. 

It may be said, "All this is done by law but, I 
say again, law cannot be separated from intelligent 
will. Nature is God perpetually working, and we 
need only look around us to see and to feel that truth 
of a Providence to which our deepest instincts turn. 

But the proof of a Divine Providence is also 
unfolded in the History of Humanity. Leaving out 
of view all the claims of a supernatural Revelation, 
and taking up the course of things through the ages 
simply from the stand-point of science, it all bears 
evidence of a, plan. Perhaps we are not competent to 
say what kind of a plan, nor exactly what purpose it 
fulfils. Our experience is too short to span the arc of 
God's intention. And yet we see enough to detect 
the harmony, method, cooperation of agencies : enough 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 



81 



to feel assured that History is not a chaos of fortui- 
tous revolutions and whirling nationalities. Every 
move on the great chess-board of the globe has been 
calculated, and the minute and the remote has had 
linear connection with the vast and the present. 

It is beautiful to see events simple, fragmentary, 
extemporaneous, anomalous, starting up in different 
quarters of the horizon, falling into symmetry, and 
coalescing at last with the great whole. Now it is 
an expedition of adventure carelessly strolling over 
the world. Now it is a cloud of conquest looming 
like a dim speck in the sky. Now it is the fiery 
words of a Prophet, flung like coals upon a people's 
heart. Now it is a king's lust, or a woman's quarrel. 
Now it is a little colony pitched from wave to wave. 
But see how the invisible shuttle weaves it all, woof 
and warp, into a consistent plan ! See how one influ- 
ence catches into another, and the falsehoods are sifted, 
and the truths survive ! See how the life of one peo- 
ple is poured into the life of another, and defeat 
becomes victory, and destruction turns out to be 
growth ; and, without being able to mark any sharp 
transition, a change comes over the face of the ages, 
beautiful, mysterious, full of inward spirit — like that 
which comes over a human face, passing from youth to 
maturity ! We clo not know exactly how the old 
Wrong crumbles away, how the contested Right passes 
into quiet sovereignty; but somehow "the leaven 
leavens the lump." We cannot safely predicate prog- 
ress in our own little span of time. To some wise 
men, there may seem to be decline and retrogression ; 
4* 



82 



SELECT SERMONS. 



but when we measure by one of God's days — one of 
those days which are a thousand years — there can be 
no doubt about "progress." The sea-mark is evidently 
higher. The world is better. The prophet has not 
spoken, the hero has not fought, the martyr has not 
died, in vain. Evidently in the course of humanity, 
as in the course of nature, there is a plan. History 
also is Providence ; and we may believe that the most 
insignificant thing, something apparently of no more 
importance in the great economy than the wild bird's 
food, is marked, and overruled, and made to do its work. 

And, whether it be on the general plain of history, 
or in narrower fields of observation, who has not 
marked the final triumph of the right, the good, the 
true, — a prevalent justice ; a curve of limitation in 
which all oscillations are rectified ? Tell me what bad 
man stands triumphant through the ages ? What hyp- 
ocrite wears always his silken robes ? What sham 
reputation, that, with the rust and the weather-stains, 
does not show the tinsel and the brass ? What fine 
gold that does not come out pure ? What jewel that 
does not sparkle at the last ? Did a truth ever die ? 
Did a falsehood ever live ? Did a wrong, sheathed in 
parchment, propped up with bayonets, strung with a 
million sinews, ever continue without being sapped 
and mined and thrown off, as an intolerable burden, by 
the popular heart ? 

Each of you can best tell what has marked his in- 
dividual life — how often he has been evidently led, he 
knew not why. In what singular positions he has 
been placed, and what mysterious implication, leading 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 



83 



to momentous consequences, has blended with his own 
will ! But certainly, wherever we look, nothing is 
more evident than the truth of a Providence — a power 
above us, interested in us, overruling all. Events, 
things, world-movements, individual experiences, con- 
templated from a partial point of view, may seem cha- 
otic, purposeless, disconnected, like the foam-flakes, 
pitching, whirling, turned into mist, bounding into 
white annihilation, at Niagara. But every atom of 
that dishevelled water is held in the curve of nature, 
and descends by law, and combines, and sweeps on- 
ward to the broad lake. So with human events : They 
are governed ; they accomplish a majestic course ; and 
over their maddest plunging, their most terrible anar- 
chy, there arches the superintending Providence — a 
bow in the cloud. 

Having thus considered the spontaneous faith in a 
Divine Providence which exists in the human heart, 
and the confirmations of that doctrine which appear 
in different spheres, let us, finally, inquire what are 
the moral results of this belief — what are the tendency 
and the efficacy of it ? 

I have already shown you that this conception of a 
Providence is a very different thing from Fatalism — 
that it does not favor indolence nor encourage sin. 
Indeed, a consoling faith in this truth is one of those 
blessings which are added unto us, we having sought 
first the kingdom of Heaven and the righteousness of 
God. No sane man dares look up from his unplanted 
field, and ask God to give him a harvest, or to bless 
him in and for his sins. 



84 



SELECT SERMONS. 



The conviction of a Divine Providence springs up 
eminently in a religious soul — the soul of a man who 
has done all that he can, and the best he can ; and it 
springs up in a two-fold conception — the conception of 
a Power working with our agency, and that of a Power 
working beyond our agency. The first we can be 
conscious of, only in endeavoring after the right and 
the good ; otherwise we feel that we have no alliance 
with Providence — feel that it is working against us. 
And, in the next place, we can become aware of a 
Power working beyond our agency, only by pushing 
our agency to its utmost. The first of these concep- 
tions, therefore, is incompatible with wilful sin, and 
the second with indolence ; and the doctrine of the 
text forbids any immoral conclusion. 

But I observe, in the first place, that this doctrine 
of Divine Providence is a source of cheerful inspira- 
tion. There are two methods of religious improve- 
ment. The one is attained by looking into ourselves 
— by considering our deficiencies and our sins, by prob- 
ing our affections, and uncovering our secret motives. 
The other is by looking away from ourselves — from 
our own narrow sphere of experience and action — to 
the Divine character and agency. Each of these 
methods must have its turn, if we would secure an 
earnest and healthful religious development. 

There are some who err by contemplating the 
Divine action only. Their theology consists in an 
exposition of what God is going to do. Their relig- 
ion is comprised in the sentiment of resignation and 
trust. It is needful that these should awake to a con- 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 



85 



viction of what man must do — to a sense of sin, and 
duty, and personal responsibility. 

But, on the other hand, men have a morbid tendency 
to introspection. He pares away the roots of motive 
and affection, until their piety becomes sickly, and their 
entire nature over- sensitive. And for such as these it 
is well to present the great truth of DivineProvidence — 
to feel that all our agency merges into the scope of infi- 
nite wisdom, love and power — that the destiny of the 
world is not poised upon our individual decision ; but, 
like the law that majestically carries our globe through 
space, we are embosomed, and uplifted, and borne 
along by an Unchangeable and Illimitable Goodness. 

Again : This doctrine of Divine Providence is a 
doctrine of strength and victory. The man who 
actually believes it, and affiliates with it, has overcome 
the world. Let events play as they will, he is on the 
winning side. He is stronger than public opinion, 
stronger than institutions, stronger than death. In 
the tentli chapter of this Gospel of Matthew, this doc- 
trine of Providence is reiterated, in connection with 
a prediction of the toils and the persecutions which 
should fall to the lot of the early disciples of Jesus. 
How it must have animated them ! and how this 
same grand truth has animated others in all ages since ! 
How many struggling spirits, how many depressed and 
tempted natures, have drawn courage, yea, omnipotence, 
from those simple words : "Are not two sparrows sold 
for a farthing ? And one of them shall not fall on the 
ground without your Father. . . Fear ye not, therefore, 
ye are of more value than many sparrows." 



86 



SELECT SERMONS. 



And, surely, I need not speak of the consolations 
which flow from this doctrine of Divine Providence. 
How could we live without it ? Is there any man so 
strong, so girt about with prosperity, so imperturbably 
happy, that he never feels the need of believing in 
some great, kind Power that carries us on through this 
mystery and perplexity, and will make all right ? 

For my part, when I think what Life is — in a large 
degree bright, beautiful, joyous ; and yet when I think 
what mingles with it, what does come, and must come, 
— I am thankful for every revelation of Science, that 
shows our world (in which are bound up so much sin 
and so much care) as a little orb linked in a grand 
system of relations, and carried through immensities 
of space. 

But especially am I thankful for every confirmation 
of these suggestions that fell from the lips of Jesus, 
and that he has so clearly taught us that Providence 
is not only general, unfolding in the majestic movement 
of natural laws, but sjoecial, numbering the very hairs 
of our heads. 

Is there any man so strong that he never needs this 
truth — so satisfied that he never looks out for it? 
Are there not times when the distracted brain, and the 
saddened soul, can feel that this faith lifts them up 
into a broad, serene light, while sorrow and trial are 
forgotten, and the garment of heaviness drops away ? 
Are there not issues in life, when the heart of the 
stoutest and the most confident comes throbbing like 
a child's heart, and lulls itself to rest on this beautiful 
fact of Providence ? 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 



87 



It is not when we lean back in guilty indolence, or 
timid distrust, that we can claim the help of a Provi- 
dence : It is not then that we can discern that there 
is a Providence at all. On the other hand, those who 
have been characterized by adherence to this truth, 
have always been the strongest workers. 

And we j working like them in the confidence of a 
childlike trust, — like them also entangled in those 
darKer issues of Life, — may rejoice to catch the sug- 
gestion of the Saviour, as the poet has done — tracing 
the flight of the wild bird, that has been made for us 
a symbol of God's universal Care : 

"He who, from zone to zone, 

Guides thro' the boundless sky thy certain flight, 
In the long way which I must tread alone, 
Will lead my steps aright." 



VI. 



GROWTH AND ADVANCEMENT. 

Yerily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the 
ground and die, it abideth alone : but if it die, it bringeth forth much 
fniit. 

John xn. 24. 

This is one of those passages of the New Testament 
which indicate that between the natural and the moral 
world, there is, in the inmost mystery of their working, 
not merely a resemblance, but a correspondence. From 
this correspondence, in the instance before us, Christ 
illustrates His own personal history. 

It appears to have been our Saviour's chief purpose, 
by his own action, not to propagate the Gospel, but to 
establish it in some centre of human agency from which 
it should spread through the world. Accordingly, 
remaining within or near the borders of His own coun- 
try, He applied Himself especially to the work of 
educating a band of faithful men who, when He had 
departed from the earth, should carry abroad the knowl- 
edge and power of the truth. He was not the Mis- 

[88] 



GROWTH AND ADVANCEMENT. 



sionary but the Expression of His own religion. He 
was Himself the great revelation. But His death 
was necessary in order to complete the revelation. 
It was necessary in order that it might be sealed as a 
whole, and to open the second period of the Gospel ; 
the era of its publication to all people. While He 
lived, there was something yet to be expressed, and 
His Apostles clung to His personal presence, as dis- 
ciples. But, when He died, they took that " Word of 
Life" which they had " seen and handled," and which 
was now a finished Word, and carried it into every 
land, as its preachers and its martyrs. 

Beside this, the death of Christ, involving His Res- 
urrection, dissolves those local and material concep- 
tions which had gathered around Him. He who no 
longer walked this earth in the flesh, but had ascended 
to the right hand of God, was now transfigured from 
a temporal deliverer to a universal Saviour. Gross 
interpretations of His office gave way to its profound 
significance, and a better idea of the kingdom of 
heaven took the place of national hope and pride. 

Thus by the death of Christ the Apostles were pre- 
pared to preach the Gospel, and the world was made 
ready to receive it, as these could not have been had 
He remained in the flesh. Here then appears the 
applicability of the Saviour's allusion — " Except a 
corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abidetli 
alone : but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." 
His death was as necessary to the fruition of the Gos- 
pel, as the dissolution of the seed to the abundance of 
the harvest. It is as though Pie had said — "So long 



90 



SELECT SERMONS. 



as I abide here upon the earth, you have only the 
revelation as an isolated germ — you have only its 
abstract life and power. But when I die, the world 
will gather the result. Then it will become a uni- 
versal religion ; for all personal limitations will dis- 
solve in my sepulchre — will drop away in my ascen- 
sion to heaven." 

We see how speedily this prediction was verified. 
Those disciples who had so misinterpreted the sayings 
of Jesus, who shrunk in dismay from His cross, and 
wept over His burial, after His resurrection went 
forth to convert a world j they demonstrated the truth 
of His promise that they should do greater things than 
Himself. On the day of Pentecost alone, more con- 
verts were gathered into the fold of Christ than all 
who had believed through His personal ministry. 
His was the primary work of Dreparing the seed, and 
until this was accomplished, neither Herod nor Caia- 
phas had power to shorten His time. But when the 
world's heart was awakened and distant nations began 
to murmur His name, He felt that His labors were 
consummated, and that the process of development was 
about to commence. Learning that certain Greeks, 
who had come up to J erusalem to worship at the feast, 
desired to see Him, He exclaimed — " Yerily, verily, I 
say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the 
ground and die, it abideth alone ; but if it die, it 
bringeth forth much fruit." 

In taking up the words of the text for use and appli- 
cation at this time, let me call your attention to the 
fact that the process to which Jesus refers, and which 



GROWTH AND ADVANCEMENT. 



91 



was so strikingly illustrated in His own personal 
history, is a process which runs throughout the natural 
and moral world. I propose now to dwell upon a few 
specific instances. 

Observe, then, in the first place, that throughout the 
universe there prevails this law — that decay is the 
condition of growth, and loss of gain, and death of 
life. There is a perpetual circle of beneficent change — 
of dissolution and of reproduction. Such is the work 
of the year, from summer to winter, from seed-time to 
harvest. Such is the revolution of ages and cycles of 
being. Descend into the recesses of the earth, into 
those immense catacombs where huge monsters lie 
packed away, each in its stony sarcophagus, like dead 
barbaric kings with the wrecks of their dynasties 
around them. There in a myriad fossil forms behold 
the seeds of human civilization, and admire the process 
through which these things enriched the great economy 
by their death more than by their life. And thus is 
it everywhere. Loss, defeat, sacrifice, are the terms of 
reward and obedience, of growth and advancement. 

But, as I said in the commencement, the law of 
the natural is in this respect the law of the moral 
world. Let me, then, especially ask you to consider 
this process of growth and advancement as it appears 
in human affairs ; in history and in individual expe- 
rience. " Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground 
and die, it abideth alone : but if it die, it bringeth 
forth much fruit." See how the inmost principle of 
this fact appears in human action — in the discipline of 
character, for instance. Is it not true that increase of 



92 



SELECT SERMONS. 



good, not only for others but for ourselves, comes ex- 
actly in proportion as we extirpate selfishness ? In this 
element — which, of course, I refer to in its mean and 
base sense — all sin has its roots ; while, on the other 
hand, all virtue, all true religious life, springs up in 
the denial of it, and the victory over it. Except a 
man loves something, and lives for something beside 
himself, he does indeed " abide alone," and his life is 
barren. Many of you, my hearers, may have experi- 
enced the working of this law, but I wish you all to 
see clearly that the law does work. And, I repeat, 
the law is this — a thoroughly selfish man abides alone. 
He has no wealth of blessedness in himself, and of 
course imparts none to others. Now it is unnecessary 
for me to say that, in order to be alone one need not 
go into a desert, or a solitary chamber. The most 
gloomy, impenetrable loneliness, is isolation of soul — 
is to live in a crowd without one reciprocal nerve, 
without one pulse of sympathy. To such a man, how 
lonely a great city must be ; lonely by the very sug- 
gestion of want excited in contact with its multitudes. 
There is much more companionship out on the broad 
sea, which seems like the heaving of the Infinite bosom 
enfolding us and bearing us up : or in the wilderness 
where the birds are singing, and the flowers look up 
with a benediction. There is far more companionship 
in conditions like these than among thousands of 
people with whom we have no spiritual contact, and 
who are not linked to us by a single familiar chord. 
Sometimes men find themselves in such a position by 
no fault of their own. But often they are thus essen- 



GROWTH AND ADVANCEMENT. 



93 



tially alone, because of some inherent vice. And in 
this sense, I repeat, the selfish man is alone. Even in 
the midst of his family, see how isolated he is ; see 
how little access they have to the innermost wards of 
his heart. Everything about him is dreary and re- 
pulsive. Everything that would be genial freezes. 
Such forms of affection as do appear, are only forms. 
They remind us of the shapes that cluster about a 
fountain in winter. They look some like garlands, but 
the stems are of ice and the leaves of snow. This 
kind of isolation, however, is comparatively rare. 
Even a radically selfish man may enclose his own 
family within his sympathies, and in a way which indi- 
cates his selfishness all the more. But look at him in 
the great world of traffic, and see how solitary he is. 
You never can get acquainted with him. He seems, 
indeed, to be little more than a calculating machine 
put up in a human skeleton. You cannot pass into 
him for an exchange of sympathies, any more than if 
he were a cylinder of steel. He always wears the 
same hard look. His smile is a gasp, and his hand 
lies in yours like a wooden pendulum. Now does 
not such a man abide alone ? He may have a kind 
of morbid, insane ecstasy, but it is fitful, liable the 
next moment to be swept away. And if his nature is 
too hardened to feel any reproachful consciousness of 
neglected duties and hard extortions, is it not enough 
that he is shut up to his selfish idolatry and has noth- 
ing else ? His money can command a great many 
things, but then he must part with so much of his only 
comfort to obtain these. It may buy him attendance 



94 



SELECT SERMONS. 



when lie is sick, and when he is no more it may bury 
him decently. But it cannot purchase friendship. It 
cannot obtain love. It cannot appease the hunger of 
the soul. It cannot bribe death, or throw a bridge 
across its lonely river. It cannot talk with him in 
his solitude, or lift him above his pain and sorrow. 
And when in his last hour he comes to part with it, 
how lonely he will be ! 

There is much of this dreadful isolation in the life 
of vice. It is the loneliness of a man hemmed within 
the cincture of his own appetites, having no relation 
with others but the fickle and guilty ties of passion. 
He has cut himself off from sympathy with the good. 
Every dear sanctity has been blighted by self-gratifi- 
cation. He alternates between a fearful torper and a 
terrible consciousness. He becomes, in fact, a moral 
leper, tainted clear through to the heart ; a living- 
body of death, solitary and loathsome, groping in the 
desert which he himself has made. Oh, could you strip 
off a little gaiety of manner, a little finery of dress, 
how many, even in the crowded streets, and under the 
flaring lights, would really look like this ! 

But whatever may be the degree of selfishness, or 
whatever its expression, just in that proportion do we 
lack real profit to ourselves or to others, and we must 
either let it melt away in some wide circle of sympa- 
thetic effort, or in some way the everlasting law will 
vindicate itself. 

On the other hand, as we let our narrow self-regard 
fall into the ground and die — as, starting from the 
basis of lawful self-appreciation, we go forward to 



GROWTH AND ADVANCEMENT. 



95 



help and to bless others and become parts of the 
living world around us — not only does there spring 
up additional fruitage of good for humanity at large, 
but we too are made richer. Every man when he has 
performed an unselfish action, knows this. He feels 
that not only has he helped others, but that into him- 
self there have passed a joy and a power that abide 
forever. In this way we gain new life. Thus, in 
proportion as our action is broad and human, we 
never die. Thus we become identified with mankind 
at large, and are incorporated with all past efforts of 
nobleness and beneficence. Thus we go forth into 
the boundless light and the free air of coming ages. 

See how good and true men, thus stretching out 
from all selfish limitations, have lived in all times and 
in many lands. Whose names are repeated from 
heart to heart, from lip to lip, from continent to con- 
tinent ! Whose names stir the fresh blood of Liberty, 
and the pulses of Virtue ! Men in whom the con- 
tracted kernel of self has died! Others who have 
won a selfish glory, and cut a sword-path to fame, 
may linger. for a while to blaze and astonish. But 
these alone stand out serene and beautiful, like con- 
stellations, to attract the world's admiration and sway 
its best influence forever. Well has it been said by 
another that " No great benefit, no extensive emanci- 
pation, whether from mental slavery, from political 
bondage, or from social evil, ... is ever wrought 
by humanity, unless the benevolent heart that under- 
takes the task has the strength of self-sacrifice, and is 
content to lay its account with long-continued endur- 



96 



SELECT SERMONS. 



ance and bitter agony. . . . It is to sucli that 
the thoughts turn. When politicians express their 
allegiance to the cause of freedom, they pledge the 
memories of those who died in the field or on the 
scaffold. When the energies of nations awake, their 
minds first turn not to those who have conquered, but 
to those who have fallen. The lingering friends of 
liberty in Rome looked to the name of Cato, and the 
victorious cause that pleased the gods was held by 
them to be inferior to the vanquished cause for which 
Cato sacrificed his life." 

But the more closely the cause is connected with 
the spiritual which is the permanent welfare of men, 
the more noble is the sacrifice made in its behalf. 
And so, over the worthiest achievements — over paths 
strewn with heroic ashes and martyr-blood — we pass 
to the sacrifice of Him whose death is the world's 
life, and who, under the shadow of His own Cross 
said — " Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground 
and die, it abideth alone : but if it die, it bringeth 
forth much fruit." 

But I proceed to observe that this law of growth 
and advancement which is thus illustrated in human 
action, is also illustrated in human suffering and endur- 
ance. It is a law which appears in the perils of life. 
For instance, who can rightly estimate the ministry of 
disappointment ? Who can tell the rich attainment 
that has been wrought through its agency? How 
often does failure in the pursuit of some cherished 
object make known something more desirable, and 
turn a man's feet in a happier direction. So long as 



GROWTH AND ADVANCEMENT. 



97 



that was, of all others, his cherished object, it hid the 
nobler interest from his sight. But his hope, which 
if attained would perhaps have yielded him lean satis- 
faction, perishes, and its perishing is far better for 
him. 

Suppose that object to be the attainment of a for- 
tune. For that end a man toils year after year ; but 
all his projects come to nothing. Finally, this reite- 
rated disappointment induces him to abandon his 
ambitious aim, to modify his desires, and to rest con- 
tented with some less dazzling achievement. But, I 
repeat, in being led to that conclusion he may find the 
most important result of all that effort ; he may find 
indeed the Providential purpose of that effort. Not 
only has this rough experience taught him the muta- 
bility of all earthly objects, but thus he may be im- 
pelled to lay up treasures above all canker and deceit. 
Nay, even in these worldly conditions, he may become 
eventually a richer and a happier man. He finds a, 
magic power in contentment — an unfailing spring of 
comfort in moderation ; and the chief advantages of 
wealth are simply in the right use of life — in the mood 
that discerns the blessedness of any lot. Just observe 
the peculiarity of this case. I repeat, this experience 
did not come to him in the legitimate succession of 
things, but in the failure of his most cherished plans. 
Out of their decay that rich harvest sprung up in his 
soul. While he was absorbed in that intense pursuit 
he had no enjoyment of the passing hour. His were 
no expanding sympathies, — blessing and being blest. 
He had no self-knowledge, no inward resources — 
5 



98 



SELECT SERMOXS. 



nothing but that dry and solitary purpose. But that 
having failed, this more durable good has sprung up 
in its place. " Except a corn of wheat fall into the 
ground and die, it abideth alone : but if it die, it 
bringeth forth much fruit." 

Sometimes this process is very manifest in occasions 
of deep affliction. When the first agony of bereave- 
ment has subsided so as to allow the succession of 
calmer thought, memory often becomes to us a tender 
and solemn pleasure. Sometimes people may fall into 
the error of supposing that there has been no deep 
affection, and but little real grief, because, the violence 
of sorrow passing away, it is followed by a calm 
cheerfulness. But that state of mind may more truly 
honor the memory of the departed than floods of tears. 
For then, perhaps, we just begin to understand them, 
and truly to live with them. Recollected in the tender 
light of affection, all its features gathered up in sym- 
pathy, every foible softened away, and only the good 
made prominent, the image thus rising before us sheds 
upon our hearts a stronger and better influence than 
when it was embodied amidst the evil of the world, 
and beheld only in fragmentary revelations. The 
worst of us may leave behind some gentle memory 
that, to fond hearts, will almost cancel the evil we 
have done. The most degraded may be remembered by 
some good trait, awakening here and there a sympa- 
thy which will drop in kindly dew upon his grave. 
Death makes a beautiful appeal to charity. When we 
look upon the dead form so composed and still, the 
kindness and the love that are in us all come forth, 



GROWTH AND ADVANCEMENT. 



99 



despite the wreck and the wickedness, the enmity and 
the shame, to detect some trace of better humanity. 
That life must have been bad indeed, from which we 
cannot gather one little flower of memory that we are 
glad to cherish, and that always sheds a fragrance 
around the departed name. And if even the worst 
may thus create some good influence by dropping from 
our sight, how much more the noble and the good! 
As to the worthies of our race, it is only after they 
are gone that they are truly appreciated. Only when 
they have receded from earthly contact, and become 
orbs in the firmament of history, do we see their 
full proportions and receive their concentrated light. 
And concerning the more obscure but not less loved, 
has not many a home and many a heart some record 
of its own which becomes a developing revelation of 
their virtues and their influence as time rolls on? 
How little we knew them, and how slightly their 
real excellence touched us, when they sat by our hearth- 
fires, and toiled by our side, and ministered to our 
wants, and bore with uncomplaining meekness our 
irritability and our mistakes. How well we understand 
them now, as they commune with us in a light from 
heaven, and with the enduring faithfulness we did not 
recognize until nothing of them was left but what they 
did for us. Yes, often is it so, that forms of affection 
and sacred duty must fall into the ground and die ere 
we gather their blessed fruit. 

And thus we may come to regard the gloomiest fact 
of all as a wise and beautiful process. We see that 
in the natural world death is only the agent of higher 



100 



SELECT SERMONS. 



life. The earth on which we stand is the contribution 
of perished existences. Their dust is the material of 
generations. Ages to come will blossom out of their 
decay. And is it not in the ranks of humanity as in 
fields of corn or wheat? Is not death everywhere 
the instrument of some rarer good that can spring up 
only when the germinal body falls into the ground ? 

It is a broad and serene faith that rightly appre- 
hends this process of growth and advancement in all 
the trials of life ; which sees the descending orbs of 
this earth travelling far upward as morning stars in 
the immortal sphere. Setting is preliminary to brighter 
rising, decay is a process of advancement, death is the 
condition of higher and more fruitful life — this appears 
to be the doctrine of the text It is a principle appli- 
cable both in the action of human life and in its en- 
durance, in trial and in duty. Such is the testimony 
of personal experience ; but now let me ask you to con- 
sider the operation of this principle in the general 
course of things. 

I think we shall find the testimony of history run- 
ning to this effect : that no great principle of truth 
and righteousness has a direct and uninterrupted de- 
velopment. It has its periods of original utterance 
and partial success, of failure and renewal. In short, 
such a principle will have a succession of seed-times 
and harvests before it reaches its consummation. But 
it is important for us to notice that these very intervals 
of apparent barrenness and burial, are essential to that 
consummation. God does not work by perpetual mir- 
acle. That would be a contradiction in terms. He 



GROWTH AND ADVANCEMENT. 



101 



does not vouchsafe the incessant guidance of revela- 
tion. Therefore, before truth in the abstract can be- 
come truth in the concrete, it must sink into the soil 
of human experience, and grow in harmony with the 
laws of human progress. It must be precipitated into 
the mould of different ages. It must slowly filtrate 
through existing institutions. Thus it gradually ele- 
vates mankind to better conceptions, and prepares them 
for a better realization of itself. That which inspired 
lips have taught, which high-lifted sages have seen, and 
which martyrs have sealed with their blood, is not 
instantly recognized by the mass of men. Ages may 
glide away, ages of emotion and of stagnation, of hope 
and of dismay, of decline and of advancement, before 
the abstract truth becomes a ripe and admitted fact. 
Nevertheless, being truth, it is a germ of imperishable 
vitality in the world. And, believing this, in dark and 
desolate seasons we shall detect the divine method, we 
shall hear that truth simmering in the laboratory of 
events, and know that by and by it will break out 
upon their face, complete and triumphant as the morn- 
ing. The very periods in which a great principle 
seems dead and buried, may be counted as periods of 
its unresting development. 

Now there is great consolation in this, as there is in 
everything which we ascertain to be a providential 
law. And we can find no more striking illustration 
of it than that to which we are led by the words of 
Jesus in the text. I mean the illustration which ap- 
pears in the career of Christianity in the world. We 
have seen that, in the first place, its growth depended 



102 



SELECT SERMONS. 



upon the death of its Divine Founder, and how it 
sprung forth from His sepulchre with fresh vigor and 
glory. But in another sense, in that early age, the 
seed of the Gospel may be said to have fallen into the 
ground and died. It was not apprehended in its pure 
spirituality by the immediate hearers of Christ. Even 
as it came from His lips it fell into the ground of 
Jewish conceptions and literal limitations. The day 
of Pentecost, and the mission of Paul, were occasions 
of its renewal and second birth, so to speak. Again, 
as a spiritual principle it fell into the ground of pagan 
interpretation and formalism. But through these forms 
and interpretations, it was conveyed to individuals 
and to communities, who otherwise would not have 
received it. It was all the while growing and advanc- 
ing, and apparent interruptions to its progress were 
efficient instruments of that progress. 

And in more modern times it will be found that 
the same law has attended the development of pure 
Christian truth. Scepticism and sectarianism may 
have seemed to hinder and almost bury it. The bald 
materialism of the last century, when the soul was 
reduced to organic tissue, and the Bible was tossed 
aside as a compilation of fables — what was its up-shot ? 
Why, that these grand and ancient truths only asserted 
themselves more vigorously. Whatever else remains 
as the result of free and scientific thinking, that mate- 
rialistic scheme does not remain ; while the judicial 
intellect gives its witness to the essential authenticity 
of the Evangelist's narrative, and the deep heart of 
humanity responds to the Psalmist's utterance. More 



GEOWTH AND ADVANCEMENT. 



103 



recently we have witnessed a philosophical reaction 
to the other extreme from materialism — a philosophy 
of intuition and general inspiration, aided by the 
apparatus of a most acute and comprehensive criticism. 
But still, what has been the result? Some human 
accretions may have been removed, accretions of false 
interpretation and conceit ; but in clearer prominence 
than ever, come out the divine reality of Jesus, and 
the truth of the wonderful narrative in which He 
stands enshrined. And such, too, is the result after ali 
the discoveries in the world of nature. The closer 
observation of God's works only renders more neces- 
sary the complementary revelation of the divine word. 
No truth stands compromised on either hand. The 
facts of matter and the facts of spirit, moving upon 
different planes, do not come into collision, but mutu- 
ally illustrate one divine plan. The scientific result 
stands approved by sense and reason, but cannot cancel 
the deep experience of a Christian soul. Ethnology 
may break the concrete surface of humanity into the 
mosaic of a thousand races, — it cannot turn into di- 
verse channels that common under-current, that deep 
gulf-stream, "which heaves with the impulses and the 
yearnings of one nature and one blood. Geology may 
throw open its rocky catacombs stamped with the hie- 
roglyphics of incalculable time. It cannot divorce the 
conscious soul from that eternal love which is the 
same yesterday, to-day, and forever. Astronomy may 
appal our fleshly eyesight with its sweep of boundless 
space. But only more impressive, more needed, more 
real, seems that Bible truth uttered long ago — " Thou 



104 



SELECT SERMONS. 



hast beset ine behind and before, and laid thine hand 
upon me." As we see what the natural world is, we 
only feel more vividly what the spiritual truth of J esus 
means, and the clouds of sense that to some may have 
seemed for the time to eclipse it, part open before the 
divine lustre that streams from the love of the cross. 

Or has the vital truth of Christianity seemed to 
perish in the furrows of sectarian zeal? A moment's 
consideration enables us to correct this view. Con- 
troversy within the church, often so deplorable in its 
spirit, has in its ends been fruitful with the richest 
results. The necessary separating of the chaff from 
the wheat ; the necessary pushing forward from dif- 
ferent angles of vision of the converging lines of that 
comprehensive truth which, as a whole, no single man, 
or age, or party sees. It may be the case, that in 
the early efforts of any sect, the one dominant truth 
overlaps other truths, and represses for the time the 
elements of devotional power. But in due season this 
smothered vitality begins to ripen, and the significance 
of the intellectual protest appears in some fresh phase 
of Christian life. If only those who serve the sect 
would cherish the consciousness that it is merely a sect 
— that there is a more comprehensive, a common Body 
of Christ to which it belongs, and in which in time it 
may even lose its distinctive name and its vitality be 
absorbed — if only men would not identify perpetual 
controversy with eternal doctrine ; if only they would 
look around with charity, and look forward with hope, 
to that more glorious, more comprehensive church, and 
feel what little insect-builders we all are in the devel- 



GROWTH AND ADVANCEMENT. 105 



opment of that majestic fabric — then, indeed, we should 
detect no fatal evil in sectarianism, and perceive how 
in these war-worn furrows the seeds of vital Christi- 
anity have not perished, but have brought forth much 
fruit. 

And so we follow out the law proclaimed in the 
text, into those practical forms with which Christianity 
reveals its working in the bosom of society — the forms 
of justice, of truth, of love. It is only to our limited 
and faithless eyesight that any righteous cause, falling 
into the ground, seems to perish. Scaffolds, despo- 
tisms, ruinous battle-fields, — these are all conditions of 
the harvest. Truth, or justice, or liberty, swathe it in 
parchment cerements ; dig its grave with bayonets ; 
press it down with thrones, bastiles, slave-blocks ; 
sprinkle it all over with the venerable dust of despo- 
tism, and in that dust trace the lines of its epitaph. It 
may be buried, but has it really perished ? Can you 
bury the spirit of Christ ? The earth rolls, the sun 
shines on, the spring winds blow, God's truth flows 
into the soul of man, and not a kernel of the righteous 
seed will fail to ripen at the last. 

" God is patient, for He is Eternal." But let us not 
be dismayed, in any private, in any public trial of this 
life, because our short reeds of measurement cannot 
mark out His great plan. 

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of 
wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone : 
but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." What a 
sublime law and process does this proclaim ! What 
vast consolation does it unfold ! How pregnant witli 
5* 



106 



SELECT SERMONS. 



the inspiration of hope for ourselves and for the world ! 
How calmly ma}' we take up this truth and cling to it 1 
Take it up and cling to it — in our trial for trust ; in 
our action for effort ; and in our survey of the general 
movement of things, for the vindication of our faith in 
a just, and advancing, and beneficent scheme of Provi- 
dence. 



VII. 



THE TWO MITES. 

And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I 
say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they 
which have cast into the treasury : for all they did cast in of their 
abundance ; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all 
her living. . 

Mark xn. 43, 44. 

Our Saviour's approval of this poor widow illus- 
trates the Spiritual Test which He applied to actions 
and to men. Just before this we read His rebuke of 
the Scribes. Before His estimate the long robes 
shrunk away, and the sonorous prayers fell dead to 
the earth. But the coin that dropped from that hum- 
ble hand He valued more than all that had been cast 
into the treasury ; for under those faded weeds He saw 
the riches of Faith and Sacrifice. 

It is hardly necessary to dwell upon this special 
point. I would simply call your attention here to the 
fact that this estimate is applied to us all, and is the 
ultimate standard by which we are tried. In the midst 
of our occupations, an eye like the eye of Him who sat 
over against the Temple-treasury scans every one of 

[107] 



108 



SELECT SERMONS. 



us, and to that judgment our conditions and our pro- 
fessions are like the Scribe's clothing, or the widow's 
weeds. 

In fact, the entire experience of life is the practical 
operation of this divine test. Life is a crucible. We 
are thrown into it and tried. The actual weight and 
value of a man are expressed in the spiritual substance 
of the man. All else is dross. And surely it is a 
strange compound that is thus mixed in this vessel of 
human life. Tatters and splendor, pompous respecta- 
bilities and leprous crimes, recoiling one from the 
other, endeavoring to find an element of separation in 
some specialty of rank or possession, of bulk or color, 
nevertheless, whirling side by side in the steam and 
bubble of being, tried by the heats of passion and the 
intensities of experience, and at last passing under 
the same relentless test. But stranger still must it be 
when each of these comes out through the cold valves 
of death, with nothing but his condensed and naked 
spirituality. All the rest over which he lamented or 
exulted, his rank or his implements, his rags or his 
money, left behind as the mere dross of his existence. 
But it is more strange than all that men should com- 
pute life by the dross, and rate the substance by the 
shell. Surely, this was what those Scribes of old did, 
whose sanctity was all in their garments, and whose 
prayers, while they " devoured widows' houses," were 
but the grace before meat. And this is what every 
man does who regards position more than principle — 
the garment more than the heart. 

And the eyes of Jesus, sitting over against the Tern- 



THE TWO MITES. 



109 



pie-treasury, or wherever He went, saw then just what 
comes out finally from this great crucible of life. He 
saw the spiritual substance of men under all its envel- 
opments. He saw the depth of motive and the wealth 
of heart. And, perceiving that the widow's two mites 
were charged with the sanctities of her soul, He 
weighed and valued them accordingly. That which 
positively enriches the universe is spiritual life. One 
manifestation of this is worth more than splendid gifts 
— more than all the material wealth of the world. 

Had we a vision sufficiently clear and penetrating, 
doubtless we should behold many strange transmuta- 
tions as the external conditions of men give place to 
the inward features of character. It has been well 
suggested that thousands of " ghosts " walk by our 
side in the great city every day — ghosts wrapped in a 
frail frame-work of flesh — stalking in a little silk and 
broadcloth. And if we should see some of these 
" ghosts " as they really are, if we could see the habit- 
ual expression of their spiritual features, it would 
probably startle us more than the conventional ghost 
of the haunted house, or the nursery tale. Such small, 
shrivelled germs of soul as we might sometimes see ! 
The ghosts of men staring out with all their fearful 
passions ; glaring in the fixed purpose of avarice, or 
of sensual desire ; contorted with hate, attenuated with 
envy, dark with revenge ; mere puffs of vapor now 
blown out in assumptive pride ; shades of an inverted 
selfishness that now walks in robes of piety ; and 
wisps of ostentatious pretension which, in this worldly 
masquerade, play high parts and make a great noise, 



110 



SELECT SERMONS. 



but which, " laid in the balance, are altogether lighter 
than vanity." 

And there may be a great many who suppose that, 
if human nature were stripped to its spiritual substance, 
and brought out in its intrinsic character, this is about 
all that it would reveal. Men of the world, shrewd 
philosophers, think they have closely reached the 
truth of things, when they regard their fellows as mere 
compounds of selfishness and vanity. They believe 
not only that everybody wears a mask, but that it is 
all mask ; and they sum up their conclusions in the 
stinging formula that — " Every man has his price." 

But these men are as much mistaken in their esti- 
mates as those who calculate only from external 
appearances. They look only from one point of view 
— from their own limited experience ; or it may be 
from their own corrupted hearts. They have been 
deluded by some, and henceforth they denounce all. 
They have awakened in themselves, or they have called 
out in others, only those selfish elements which do exist 
in all, and they think that humanity is nothing but selfish- 
ness. They study society with an opera-glass, and 
fancy they are studying it very thoroughly. No : their 
lens is too shallow in its penetration, too narrow in 
its scope. It wants not merely microscopic but teles- 
copic power, to know humanity in its essence ; a power 
to discern its grandeur as well as its littleness, the 
infinity of its relations as well as the meanness of its 
pursuits. The human soul is a great deep. We must 
take into view the nebulous possibilities that are brood- 
ing and waiting there, and notice the buds and films 



THE TWO MITES. 



Ill 



of light that reveal themselves even in the darkest 
spaces. 

I call your attention, then, especially to the fact 
that, although the vision of Jesus was turned full upon 
the innermost substance of humanity, He did not find 
it all mean and dark. The most searching gaze that 
was ever bent upon man from eyes of flesh did not 
confirm the conclusion of the cynic, that the more we 
know of our race the worse we shall find them. He, 
looking wider, looking deeper than any, found some 
good ; found it not all base and frivolous. 

He had just been exposing the pretensions of the 
Scribes, but how readily did He detect the ray of good- 
ness which streamed out from the humble deed of the 
poor widow ! What a beautiful phase of humanity did 
His prompt sympathy and approval reveal ! How dif- 
ferent is this, I repeat, from that misanthropic percep- 
tion which sees nothing but guilt and gloom — from 
that satirical spirit which delights in hitting the fool, 
or tearing the robes from the hypocrite, and which 
conveys the impression that society is made up of fools 
and hypocrites. We may call this wholesome truth, 
we may call it needed severity. But it is not the 
whole truth, nor is it the best way of setting forth the 
truth. The world is not all fools and hypocrites ; nay, 
it is difficult to believe even that any one man is all 
fool or hypocrite. He who seeks for instances of hu- 
man weakness as the material for cynical conclusions, 
will undoubtedly find plenty of them. But of all the 
traits which he thus collects in his cabinet of the gro- 
tesque and the vile, I question whether he has one 



112 



SELECT SERMONS. 



complete specimen of any man. Depend upon it — 
though sometimes facts seem to forbid our belief — there 
is some spring of good feeling in the worst heart ; or, 
at least, some dim ideal of better things by which its 
tides, however feebly, are moved and drawn. In the 
most shallow nature there clings some shred of dignity 
which redeems it from utter contempt. And it is a 
mean performance, or else it is purblind sight, that 
selects the odious features and parades them as the 
sum-total of human nature. If this really were so, 
what a world this would be ! Faith of home and 
friendship ! pulses of human confidence, that run along 
the street and circulate around the globe ! what would 
be left if thus your sanctities should be denied and cast 
away ? Let us feel sure of this — that a man whose 
vision is positively clear and spiritual, while he cannot 
help detecting the evil, and must denounce it, also rec- 
ognizes the good and rejoices to point it out. The 
highest genius never flowers in satire, but culminates 
in sympathy with that which is best in human nature, 
and appeals to it. The satirist may amuse us for a 
time with his keenness and vigor, but he soon ceases 
to delight, and he never inspires us. He has linear 
skill. He cuts striking profiles. But we feel that he does 
not present us with the broadest expression of human na- 
ture, nor even with a complete type of any class of men. 
But another, who touches the lights and shades of human- 
ity with a genial spirit, who draws out the worth that 
is hidden in coarseness and obscurity, and contrives to 
reveal " the soul of goodness in things evil," even though 
chargeable with exaggeration, meets an instinctive 



THE TWO MITES. 



113 



response from the common heart. And this success in 
intellectual performance indicates the facts in human 
life and character. There is good as well as evil in 
the heart of man. There are long-robed Scribes. 
There are hypocritical Pharisees. But there are poor 
widows also ; and the comprehensive vision recognizes 
the one as well as the other. And the true man, while 
he is forced to acknowledge colossal wickedness and 
paramount deceit, delights to honor the least gleam of 
excellence shining out in lowly and neglected places. 
Moreover, it is his privilege to discover this excellence 
— to see, after all, how rich life is with virtue, and how 
beautiful with love. It is given to him to see what 
grandeur often consorts with weakness, what heroism 
with life-long pain, what divine familiarity flows down 
into the humble spirit, and what stars of promise stand 
over the tabernacles of the poor. Oh ! all around us 
there are transactions akin to that in the treasury of 
the temple. This hour, there are poor women whose 
sacrifice of faith and duty is as rich in God's eyes as 
the widow's two mites. Hidden among these thick 
dwellings there are deeds of self-denying affection 
that, in the eternal scales, weigh down coins and ingots. 
Come before us in this Sabbath hour, images of noble 
performance and faithful endurance ! Stand up in the 
midst of your desolate home, 0 patient wife, whose 
love and prayers still cling around your drunken hus- 
band ! and let your silent tears drop into life's great 
treasury. Gome, Christian Trust! and let us see how 
rich that faith has made your need and limitation, ex- 
panding those narrow walls into the palace of infinity, 



114 



SELECT SERMONS. 



and hanging scriptural texts like constellations along 
your way. Come, humble Charity, forgetting your 
own wants in ministering to the woes of others, that 
w r e may discover how your spirit transfigures the dark 
nook and lonely lane into a celestial road, and under- 
neath those faded garments shows us angels' feet ! 

It is indeed a rare privilege to possess a vision which 
sees through the forms of things to their substance, 
and knows all that is false and hollow ; but it is much 
more blessed to possess this vision in its comprehen- 
siveness, that we may recognize the good there is in 
human life as well as the evil ; that we may see what 
dignity there is in humility, what greatness in obscu- 
rity, and how much value even in two mites. 

But the incident connected with the text not only 
teaches us to make right estimates of others. It fur- 
nishes practical suggestions for ourselves. In the first 
place, we learn from it that the test of principle is in 
effort and in cost. My brethren, there is a great deal 
of diffused and unapplied principle in the world. 
Almost everybody has some of it in the ore, but there 
are many who have never brought it into a circu- 
lating condition ; no, hardly to the amount of two 
mites. For instance, how much reverence there is in 
the abstract ! The most profane wretch in the streets 
would, very likely, be affronted by the man who should 
deny the existence of God, or speak lightly of the 
Redeemer, while the next moment he will desecrate 
both with his oaths and his conduct. Where can you 
find a man who does not praise honesty and brotherly 
love ? You will hear any amount of this commenda- 



THE TWO MITES. 



115 



tion in places where, before to-morrow morning, there 
will be a dozen thefts and twenty quarrels. Consider 
how much the moral principle of the community — I 
mean the moral principle that is publicly professed and 
talked about — is in advance of the actual principle of 
individuals. In the former instance, principle is hon- 
ored merely in decorous expressions ; in the latter it 
requires personal effort. Men magisterially severe 
against unpopular vices, practice them in private. The 
majestic symbol that stands aloft on capitol and court- 
house, expresses the public ideal of justice ; but the 
justice that is summoned into many an ordinary trans- 
action wears a slovenly bandage, and has falsified its 
scales. I repeat, then, there is a great deal of unap- 
plied principle, just as there is a great deal of unapplied 
air and water flowing abroad in general currents. In 
order that it may have a personal value, we must bring 
it to bear upon the machinery of the heart and the 
will. It must be our own principle, nourished and 
put forth with effort and with cost. No man knows 
the genuineness of his convictions until he has sacri- 
ficed something for them. Therefore, it is a close 
question to ask — How much have your principles cost 
you ? Have they ever repressed a single indulgence ? 
have they ever lopped off a bad habit ? have they ever 
over-balanced dollars and cents? These general 
streams of moral sentiment may make the abstract 
landscape of society look very picturesque, but have 
you ever turned them in among the wheels and pullies 
of your own personality, so that out of your individ- 
ual life fresh contributions of spiritual force go abroad 



116 



SELECT SERMONS. 



in the world ? By your appearance here in the church, 
among the ordinances of the Sabbath, many of you 
express a general faith in the fundamental verities of 
religion. But permit me to ask — how much have you 
ever done in the spirit of religion ? In the light of 
its great conceptions, how much effort, how much sacri- 
fice, have you ever made ? There is a far wider profes- 
sion of faith in Christianity now than in the age of the 
primitive church. But how much more Christianity 
exists now ? There are good men and wise men who, 
aware that the vitality of the Gospel is not in outward 
attainments but in consecration of soul, are perplexed 
in deciding whether in this nineteenth century, 
notwithstanding its magnificent vehicles of civilization, 
there are any evidences of genuine progress. Surely, 
if any such progress is apparent, it is not where the 
mere utensils of that progress become the idols of our 
trust, and the tents that are pitched for a day swell 
into decorated chambers of luxury and pride. It is 
not where the grander interests of life are swamped 
by material splendor ; but it is where human hearts 
are consecrated by christian love and holiness, and at 
all costs devote themselves to their work. Whether 
it lifts up its voice like a trumpet against oppression, 
or labors among the degraded and the poor ; whether 
it walks the ghastly hospital, or toils beneath oriental 
palms ; wherever principle is maintained with cost, 
and men are conscious of doing something or denying 
something for the sake of principle, there are spiritual 
value and genuine growth. The poor widow's act 
represents the grandest result that goes through the 



THE TWO MITES. 



117 



ages. Out of all this glare and clamor, in the thunder 
of obedient forces and the rush of dizzy wheels, these 
are the products we honor, and point to as proofs of 
real life and advancement in our time : — there, where 
the form of womanly charity bends in the wards of 
Scutari ; or where the legend of heroic faith and phi- 
lanthropy, recorded on those icy walls, is burnished 
by the sun of Polar summers, and gleams through all 
those dreary aisles on which the cold stars shine. 
And not alone in vast achievements appears this con- 
secrating vitality of cost and sacrifice. No : here comes 
out the beauty of the Scriptural lesson. Small means, 
humble efforts, are exalted by the motive. Such 
deeds, wrought by faithful men and women in the spirit 
of duty, are their two mites, all they have, even all 
their living — and are counted in the treasury of im- 
perishable good. 

Yes, it was this that made the poor widow's gift so 
precious. Had the " many who were rich" brought their 
entire possessions and poured them out there, in this 
estimate it would all have amounted to no more than 
her act. " For," says the Saviour, " all they did cast 
in of their abundance ; but she of her want did cast in 
all that she had, even all her living." Those two 
mites! They were heavy with her labor and her 
prayers and her self-denial, and so, as they fell into 
the treasury, they rung in the ear of heaven, and 
Jesus valued them. Had they remained in other hands 
they would have been but two mites still. Therefore, 
these principles of righteousness that are commended 
from lip to lip, are for us worth nothing until they 



118 



SELECT SERMONS. 



are coined in our own hearts, stamped with the image 
and superscription of our own personality, and poured 
into the world by our own positive endeavor. 

I will urge another lesson that may be drawn from 
the incident before us. It is involved with the idea of 
contribution. In the first place, there is the very pal- 
pable lesson, that we all may do some good in the 
world. The humblest cannot plead inefficiency, since 
the poor widow has been thus honored in her gift. A 
very palpable lesson which it behooves every one of us 
to heed ! 

But this fact also comes up here — the fact that each 
of us actually is contributing something to the general 
sum of human influence. Each of our lives is itself a 
contribution of good or evil for the world. Every 
day men are casting into the treasury ; casting their 
wisdom, their love, or their folly ; casting their effort 
and their example. Sometimes, alas ! their folly weighs 
down their gold, and their wisdom is not worth two 
mites. And sometimes it is only a refreshing word, 
or a kind deed, and yet it outvalues the contributions 
of many who are rich. Sometimes men contribute 
themselves. In fact, there are two kinds of self-devo- 
tion. Here is one who has devoted himself to the ideal 
of duty. Filial affections, social obligations, religious 
convictions, move him to cancel his own selfish desires ; 
to curb his appetites, his ambition, and his pride, and 
to make sacrifice for others. In the labor of support- 
ing helpless parents he renounces the brilliant pros- 
pects of his youth, and settles down in uncomplaining 
drudgery. Or, in order to carry forward some truth, 



THE TWO MITES. 



119 



he leaves father and mother, and houses and lands. In 
order that he inay serve the cause of God he takes His 
life in his hands across great oceans and lonely deserts. 
To the stock and treasury of the divine glory and of 
human welfare, he contributes himself. Oh, how such 
men, whether in public life or in private, are to be 
valued ! Men who, in the spirit with which the widow 
gave up her two mites, have given up themselves. 
How their names sparkle ! How rich their very ashes 
are ! How they will count up in heaven ! 

On the other hand, here is one who instead of con- 
tributing to the value of life adds to its waste. He 
too gives up himself. He gives up the fine gold of his 
humanity to corruption — to lust and impulse, to pol- 
luting sensuality and consuming desire. That is the 
word — Waste ! The dreadful waste of bloom and hope, 
of reputation and integrity, of body and soul, in that 
great treasury of vice, whose bankers are sin and death ! 
If in this reckless casting away of himself, he could 
only see the pity in that searching eye which is look- 
ing upon him even now ! 

But of this one tiling be sure — of our words, our 
deeds, our entire life, we are contributing something 
to the sum of moral being. What is that contribution, 
my hearers ? Do we live so as to make our two mites 
of power and influence richer than mere earthly advan- 
tages? or, so that our earthly advantages are not worth 
two mites ? 

I observe, finally, that the transaction before us 
illustrates the dignity that religious faith imparts to 
all with which it is allied. That poor widow, shrink- 



120 



SELECT SERMONS. 



ing in the crowd of the ostentatious and the rich, and 
dropping the two mites from her trembling hand — how 
she stands out now before all ages ! How grand those 
faded garments look ! Christ has honored her, and a 
halo of brightness is around her forevermore : and her 
faith has become her reward. It is hardly a fanciful 
light by which we trace out the history of her trials 
ending in this triumph. We imagine how she bore 
the desolation of her sorrow. It was as hard for her 
then as it is for any of us now to feel the anguish of 
that last mortal look. It was as hard to bear that 
awful sense of bereavement and solitude, that comes 
when the grave's door is shut, and says to us more 
impressively than words — "Alone ! alone ! " It was as 
hard to face the necessities of life, and make the effort 
to ward off destitution. Yes, she is linked to you, 
poor ones, bereaved ones, by experiences that run 
through every age and all round the world. But, it 
may be, almost as hard as all the rest, was that resolu- 
tion to take the two mites and carry them to the treas- 
ury. Not that her want pleaded, but, perhaps, her 
pride, which even poverty and affliction cannot utterly 
quench. She must stand side by side with the great 
and the sumptuous, and how would her two mites look 
when cast in among their gold and silver ! But then 
came the encouragement of faith ; then streamed in 
the sublime conviction of duty ; and she did that which 
lends interest to all her history. 

And it is this that lends interest to the obscurest of 
us all. Our lives and our deeds grow momentously 
significant in the light of religious realities. The great 



THE TWO MITES. 



121 



fact to be considered is not our lot in life, but ive who 
are in that lot, and what we make out of it. The im- 
portant point is, how we meet life's issues, and the use to 
which we put them, and the amouut of wealth we bring- 
to the treasury at last. And, I repeat, religious faith 
dignifies the least act performed in its spirit. In sum- 
ming up the real value of human things, those men 
and women appear the greatest who, whatever their 
means or station, have wrought in the conviction of 
duty. 

Let us, then, each accept the lot assigned us, simply 
to do the best we can in it and with it. Religious 
faith levels all earthly inequalities and removes all 
disguises. In its clear light how the real breaks 
through the apparent, and all outward symbols give 
way before the spirit and the life. Nay, in the quick 
apprehension of that faith, the future is made present, 
and the unseen becomes visible, and the multitudes of 
men, and the diversities of our mortal life, are trans- 
formed into the congregation of immortal souls. And 
among those whose crowns are brightest there, and 
who walk with serenest look, are those who by their 
spirit enriched their means, and who, though able 
to give but little, cast in all that they had. 
6 



VIII. 



HOME. 

God setteth the solitary in families.— Psalm Lxvm. 6. 

These few words suggest the subject to which I 
invite your attention in this discourse. They indicate 
a Divine purpose in placing the individual man in 
domestic relations. They lead us also to consider the 
significance and importance of the Family. More- 
over, they call our attention to the results flowing 
from this institution. I propose, therefore, to speak, — 

I. Of the relations of the Individual to the Family. 

II. Of the Family in itself. 

III. Of the Family in its connection with Society. 

I. Observe the relations of the individual to the 
family. And I affirm, in the outset, that these rela- 
tions indicate a Divine purpose. 

The organs and functions of the human body are 
often selected as proofs of Divine design. And de- 

[122J 



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123 



spite all metaphysical subtleties this argument cannot 
be refuted, for it indicates not only fitness in the end 
but tJiought in the means. It rests upon the relation 
of one thing to another — upon adaptation and reci- 
procity. Even in instances where the corresponding 
fact does not appear, we infer what must be from what 
is. The physiologist will delineate the structure of, 
a man, or an animal, by inductions from a single tooth 
or a bit of bone ; or he will argue the existence of 
light from the character of the eye. So does the indi- 
vidual man appear as only a part of a larger organ- 
ism, and from his very nature we might infer the exist- 
ence of the family as a corresponding fact. It is not 
an invention of man, but an institution of God, and 
therefore whatever may be said of larger communities, 
in the family we have a Divine form of society. All 
other associations might dissolve, and yet in this human 
life and welfare would be secured. But this could not 
be the core, if the family should dissolve. It is an 
institution which can be conceived as existing inde- 
pendent of tribes, independent of States, — in fact, as 
containing in itself all the functions of a complete 
society. On the other hand, although speculatively 
we may obstruct the individual from the family, we 
cannot conceive of him as truly and completely living, 
apart from this relation. We may separate a single 
leaf from a tree, or a fibre from a clump of moss, but 
this is not the way in which vegetable life actually 
flourishes ; it is always in groups and masses. So 
among men. The family appears as a primary form 
upon the earth, an original and complete organism, 



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from which the individual can no more fitly be sepa- 
rated than the hand from the body. And the individ- 
ual organism prefigures the organism of the family as 
truly as the tooth, or the joint, prefigures the organ- 
ism of the human frame. I repeat, then, whatever we 
may say of other forms of society, here is a primary 
fact ; a fact of Divine establishment. It is God who 
has endowed the individual man with this social need 
and ministration. It is God who has set " the solitary 
in families." 

And now I ask you to consider, for a moment, the 
beneficence of this relation so far as the individual is 
concerned ; beneficence just as evident as that which 
appears in the mutual relations of the members of the 
human body. In examining the eye, or the hand, we 
do not dwell alone upon the proofs of creative power 
and skill, but we speak of creative goodness. Not 
only do we say — " How admirably made is this organ 
of sight !' 7 " How exquisitely endowed is this organ 
of touch I" but " How much delight and blessedness in 
the action of these !" We may sever the right hand 
from the wrist ; we may pluck the eye from its socket : 
still there would be the wonderful structure, the deli- 
cate tissues and exquisite draperies of creative skill. 
But gone is all the delight from those dead fibres and 
shrivelled nerves. This ensued only as they served 
and were served, being parts of a reciprocal organism; 
the eye seeing, and the hand feeling, each for all and 
all for each. And in this entire organism what joy, 
what glory, what fulness of benevolence, as well as 
constructive wisdom ! 



HOME. 



125 



So, what beneficence, what blessedness, in the rela- 
tions of the family ! How intensely solitary, — or, as 
the word in the text might be translated, " forsaken," 
— would man be, apart from these relations. Consider 
how it would fare with him were all those powers and 
dispositions that are exercised at home repressed, or 
unemployed. He would indeed be but a " creature " 
rather than a man. Solitary ? The most lonely of 
beings is a man cut off from all social relations and 
domestic ties. The rock that stands out in the ocean 
alone with the sky and the surf, is only an image of 
human desolation. In its position there is nothing 
incongruous with its intrinsic nature. And it is not 
really solitary. It is at one with the elements around 
it, lending and receiving beauty, grandeur, and un- 
conscious delight. It stands out there among the 
wild waves that twine it with sea-weed, and scatter 
triumphal diamonds on its head. The clouds take it 
up into their awfulness and mystery, and all the lights 
and shades of heaven shift and mingle upon it as they 
come and go. So, too, the wild bird that flies so lone 
and far, has somewhere its nest and brood. A little 
fluttering heart of love impels its wings and points its 
course. There is nothing so solitary as a solitary 
man. In no being are there such faculties depending 
upon the institution of the family for their unfolding 
and their nourishment. I say — depending upon the 
institution of the family; not upon society, but upon 
something more radical and sacred than society. 
There are qualities in man's nature which could not 
exist were we to abrogate the sanctity of the homo. 



126 



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And here is an answer to all theorists who seek to 
dissolve that peculiar sanctity in more general rela- 
tions of humanity. There are men who for the bonds 
of marriage would substitute the freedom of affinities, 
and break the wedding ring as a superstitious symbol. 
There should be no domestic partitions, no appropri- 
ated hearth-stone, no hallowed nook of family life — 
only one great court-yard of social relations, turning 
all the house into a doorway ! But humanity has no 
rights that would cancel that bond of domestic pecu- 
liarity out of which alone a genuine humanity can 
grow. Break up the institution of the family, deny 
the inviolability of its relations, and in a little while 
there would not be any humanity. I know what evils 
are involved in existing conditions. I know what 
brutalities take shelter under the domestic relations, 
and insult, and bruise, and kill, in the very name of 
the law. But everything has its shadow. Evil min- 
gles with all human agency. And, because these evils 
do exist, to break the strong bands of the marriage 
relation and set the family group adrift in some vague 
conceit of social freedom, or some nonsense of " spirit- 
ual affinities," would be like knocking a ship in pieces 
because some of the passengers are sea-sick. This 
organism of the family is a ship that has carried 
human civilization over the waves of ages — an ark 
that has preserved the germs of the social state in 
many a deluge. Sunder the ties that hold it together, 
and who can estimate the ruin, or from the shattered 
fragments reconstruct society? "God setteth the 
solitary in families f and, I repeat, in this peculiar 



HOME. 



127 



relation and not merely in society at large, qualities 
are developed that otherwise would remain dormant, 
or assume a stunted and uncertain growth. Man in 
selfish solitude is like a telescope closed up. The 
qualities of his humanity may exist, but they are 
unknown. But now consider what powers and affec- 
tions are drawn out in the family. 

Without attempting to enumerate all these qualities, 
I ask you, for instance, to consider the parental senti- 
ment. Have you ever really estimated the strength 
and beauty of this, and thought how much it contrib- 
utes to the mere individuality of man or woman ? 
By himself, a man may be a scholar, a thinker, a 
worker, and so fill a wide orbit of usefulness and 
enjoyment. But need I say how all his powers acquire 
strength, how all his sympathies become intensified, 
when these are impelled by a father's affection, and 
involved with the solicitudes of a father's care? 
Need I say what new life is imparted to him in the 
lives of his children ; nay, what depths are opened, 
what chords are touched, what enlarged vision is 
given, even by their death? Shall I attempt to de- 
scribe what no language can express, — the power, and 
beauty, and heroism, and majesty, of a mother's love ? 
Is not that a marvellous change which transforms the 
thoughtless girl into the brave and patient minister of 
God's greatest gifts to man — the saving nurture, the 
early care, the vigilance and teaching, the love that is 
fathomless, which years and sin and shame cannot 
balk, which from its exhaustless wells flows, out for 
the lost and wayward child ; that shrinks not where 



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man cowers, and grows stronger where man faints, — 
and over the wastes of worldly fortune sends the 
radiance of its quenchless fidelity like a star in heav- 
en ? Memories of mothers dead and living, never 
to be stricken from the soul ; forms of mothers grey 
and bent with years, or slumbering in quiet church- 
yards ; faces of mothers on earth and in heaven, 
lighted with all the associations that cluster around 
that name ; move our hearts to think and feel what 
powers, what blessings, God calls into being when He 
" setteth the solitary in families." 

In the soil of home, too, grow filial love, fraternal 
affection, the sentiments of mutual dependence and 
mutual trust ; yes, even that religious reverence which 
man carries into the highest postures of the soul, and 
by which he is taught to conceive of the Heavenly 
Father. 

Consider, then, what is superadded to individual 
life by the family relation, and acknowledge the wis- 
dom and beneficence of God in this primeval organ- 
ism ! Home, wherever found ; the cheerful house, the 
rude wigwam, the cavern, the tent, the stately palace, 
the burrow in the ground, is in its elements ordained 
by Him who makes no thing in all His universe to be 
alone ; who links fibre to fibre, limb to limb, eye to 
hand ; and who only in social spheres gives room for 
the noblest individual powers. 

II. Let us, in the next place, direct our attention to 
home as an institution in itself. In reply to the 
notions of certain theorists, I have just urged the 



HOME. 



129 



sacredness of the family relation. I have spoken of 
the family as a Divine institution. But this should 
not be a mere abstraction with us. It should be real- 
ized and felt. And the way in which home is practi- 
cally regarded by any of us, will prove how much we 
realize and feel these claims. Let the father, the 
mother, the child, ask — " What is home to me ?" — 
and the answer will be the standard by which we may 
know how far, in our relations to it, the Divine pur- 
pose of the family is fulfilled. If we make home 
only a place to eat and sleep in, a hotel or caravan- 
sera ; if we are employed merely in making provision 
for it, and securing temporal good ; then that Divine 
purpose is not fulfilled. 

Now it is not necessary for me to speak of gross 
violations of the duties of Home, which all would be 
prompt to condemn. But I icill speak here of one 
such gross violation, more gross in the very fact that 
it is silent and perhaps unseen. I do not allude to 
acts of physical violence. I speak of blows that fall 
on naked hearts, of violence done to the deepest sanc- 
tities of - life. I speak of affections withering from 
neglect — of confidence basely abused. I speak of 
vows that God has sealed, broken and trampled under 
foot. I speak of the shameful profligacy of husbands 
and fathers, belonging to hundreds of homes in this 
very city. I speak of men with wives and daughters, 
who make light of the sanctities of that womanhood 
in which those wives and daughters are glorified. 
Men breathing a moral atmosphere, one breath of 
which by wife or daughter would blast her with en- 
6* 



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during shame. Men hiding their sneaking abomina- 
tion with social decencies, and living as if they were 
masked from God. Men who, if they really felt their 
own meanness, would skulk from the face of virtue, 
and wilt in the light of innocence. Lepers of domes- 
tic infidelity. Animate plague spots in broadcloth and 
fine linen. Heads of families, over each of whose 
door-posts should be written the proclamation of " a 
desecrated home," and whose foreheads should be 
stamped with " the mark of the Beast." 

Not lingering upon this, however, let me pass on to 
protest against all styles of living that often lead to 
this, or which in any other way tend to the deprecia- 
tion of home. It is lamentable that so many virtually 
live without a home. Of course, I do not mean those 
who are forced to this as a dreadful necessity. But I 
allude to those who from mere love of luxury, or the 
desire for ease and convenience, forego the establish- 
ment of a home. Even with this class, there may be 
instances where this method is not a matter of choice 
but of circumstances. But where it is merely a matter 
of choice, the motives being, as I have said, simply 
ease, or convenience, or a morbid fondness for society 
destroying all relish for home delights, there ensues 
an amount of evil which cannot be dwelt upon here, 
even if it can be suggested. I merely say, as it appears 
to me, that a shanty which you can call your own 
home, is better than a palace frequented by everybody; 
which is like lodging on the house-top, and eating in 
the street. Especially do children, in the young and 
tender blade, need the dew of domestic influences, and 



HOME. 



131 



furrowed privacy. They flourish not so well in the 
garish sunlight, at the roadside. 

The ends for which the family was instituted indi- 
cate its claims. I have already shown that whatever 
really tends to call out the best qualities of the indi- 
vidual, constitutes one of these ends. Here, then, we 
find the claim of maternal ditty, and this I must say 
is a claim which is not always answered even by those 
whose hearts seem full of maternal love. Nay, how of- 
ten is a mother's duty to her children weakened by the 
unconsidered excess of a mother's love. How common 
are the fond eyes that will see no wrong, the ingenious 
affection that excuses every fault, the indiscriminate 
tenderness that with lavish indulgence spoils the 
" mother's darling." 

On the other hand, how often are the tendrils of 
domestic welfare crushed by the hard, cold forms of 
etiquette. Fashionable indolence, fashionable frivolity, 
fashionable custom, commits to the servant or the 
nurse, opportunities and influences that should be 
filled with a mother's presence, and come only from a 
mother's heart. The child will grow, the child will 
learn to think and feel. Whence shall come the breath 
of its very life, and the incentives by which it unfolds 
for good or evil ? There is a neglect in homes which 
is not a necessity of poverty. We speak of " aban- 
doned children ! " There are abandoned children liv- 
ing under frescoed ceilings, and on rich carpets. There 
are vices which grow rank in indulgence, as well as in 
terrible need. And fashionable matrons, as well as 
pauper mothers — those because they will not do their 



132 



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duty, these because they cannot — may sit down and 
mourn for their ruined sons. But how trite a truth is 
it to say — that the noblest souls which have ever been 
launched into this world, have had mothers to stand 
by them, receiving them as a sacred charge from God. 
And, in their highest achievements, in noble effort and 
successful enterprise, in senates and on battle-fields, up 
the steep of intellectual triumph, and in the foremost 
rank of moral work, they hear the mother's voice and 
feel the pressure of her hand. 

In speaking of the family relation, I alluded also to 
the love and care of a fathers heart. And this also 
indicates a claim. The most exaggerated conception 
of a mother's influence cannot furnish any reason for a 
father's neglect. With all that she may do, the home 
that does not feel his living sympathy is not a home. 
Cares, enterprises, arduous toil, cannot cancel the pur- 
pose for which God setteth the solitary in families. 
A man has no right to let his entire heart melt away 
in business, and carry none of it home with him. And 
if he ought not to make his counting-room his home, 
neither has he any right to make his home a counting- 
room, dusky with the cares of profit and loss and vex- 
ing speculations. There never was a business interest 
yet that ought to put out the light on the hearth-stone, 
or disarm a father in the midst of his children of kind- 
ness, cheerfulness, hope and faith. 

The evils of which I have spoken in relation to a 
mother's duties, appear equally in the neglect of pater- 
nal obligations, but you perceive that I am merely 
touching the springs of suggestion here, not dwelling 



HOME. 



133 



upon a list of topics that might occupy a volume. And 
remember what I said before. I am not speaking of 
gross violations of domestic duty — of violent desecra- 
tions of the family tie. I am not speaking of drunken 
mothers, and brutal fathers, or of places that go by the 
name of " home" that are merely the portals of Pan- 
demonium. I am not referring to miserable, abject 
homes, where the mists of ignorance and sin hang low 
and dark, where poverty stands at the door, and hun- 
ger sits on the hearth-stone. I am speaking of the 
common class of homes, where we may look for the 
most hopeful issues, or in the neglect of whose ordinary 
duties the saddest results will spring up. And I 
entreat each of you to inquire — " What is home to 
me ? " " What do I make of it ? n 

Young man ! young woman ! What do you make 
of it ? You have not been left to grow up in your 
solitary individuality, but have been set in families. 
Here is a better school than any outside the walls — a 
school for more momentous results, inasmuch as 
moral are higher than intellectual ends. Here is a 
school for filial duty, and for mutual help. Here is a 
school for that child-like reliance and reverence, which 
is becoming rare among us. Real children now are 
hard to find, and we are having instead crops of little 
men and little women. It is a sad thing, I think, to 
see such hasty growths as these, such a slackening 
of decent reverence and order, — and it all calls for our 
earnest attention to the faults and neglects at home. 

Nay, my hearers, let me ask you each and all, Is 
home a place of serious thought, as well as of love and 



134 



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gladness? Have you any altar there? Do you 
sprinkle it with prayer? Is it over-arched by the con- 
scious presence of God? Is it brightened by His 
benediction ? Is it hallowed by consecration to Him ? 
Dp we feel that He is its founder and its strength 
— He who " setteth the solitary in families ?" Do we 
realize what home is, and what it is appointed to be ? 
Do we think of the mystic seeds of life there planted ? 
Of the solemn spiritual growth that there goes on? 
Do we improve its trials and experiences in their full 
meaning ? Do we comprehend the significance of the 
communions that are brightened by its fire-lights, of 
the shadowy memories that fresco its walls ? Is it a 
little thing to us that the cry of birth has been heard 
beneath its roof, that the mystery of death has de- 
scended into its chambers ? Is there no solemnity as 
well as gladness in the relations of husband and wife, 
of father and mother — a solemnity that links time to 
eternity, and earth with heaven ? When we realize 
it, is not home full of incentives, full of voices calling 
us to duty and love, to faith and prayer ? Ye, whom 
God has set in families, for what has He placed you 
there ? What answer, by your own individual thought 
and action, do you make to this question ? 

III. The relation of the family to society at large, 
is a theme of such magnitude that I can only indicate 
it in the closing portion of this discourse. I look 
upon home as the foundation of whatever may grow 
up in our present social conditions, or in the ideal 
society of the future. We have seen what ends are 



HOME. 



135 



served by the family institution in developing the life 
of the individual. But this does not reveal the only 
reason why the solitary have been set in families. As 
the organism of the individual prefigures something 
beyond itself, so the organism of the family prefigures 
something beyond itself— even the structure of a true 
society. The home, so important in itself, loses much 
of its essential significance, if its offices of mutual love 
and mutual help end in itself. Family affection, family 
interest, family pride, are too often synonymous with 
an intense and offensive selfishness. But in the normal 
exercise of these duties and affections, man is educated 
for a wider range of service and for world-wide sym- 
pathies. The best schemes of social usefulness, the 
noblest public life, is developed out of these family 
sanctities. The roots of philanthropy, patriotism, 
religion, are watered by the springs of home. Here 
the true idea of society is symbolized. The best 
achievements of civilization are but extensions of the 
family relations, realized in paternal government and 
human brotherhood. 

Therefore in our action at home we find not only 
the immediate claims of family life, but of social order 
and welfare. It is not necessary for me to show how 
many remedies for social evils are to be applied here. 
I only urge the two-fold aspect of the question. As 
members of families, our interest in society centres in 
the fact that social customs upon which we act, which 
we help make up, react upon ourselves and our 
children, and that we send out from the home incalcu- 
lable influences for good or evil into the world, and 



136 



SELECT SERMONS. 



into the future. At the altar and the hearth-stone 
we grasp the round earth, we touch all ages. 

God has set the solitary in families ; and in that in- 
stitution are enclosed the greatest results of earth and 
heaven. With a vision sufficiently clear we might see 
in the germ the full circle of the flower ; in the acorn 
the branching oak, with five hundred summers mur- 
muring in its leaves. So in the ground and seed-plot 
of home we may have pre-vision of the best conditions 
of this world or the other. From this we build up 
images of that which no mere definite speech can 
express. The fairest social state will appear, when 
" our sons shall be as plants grown up in their youth 
and "our daughters as corner-stones, polished after 
the similitude of a palace." And, linking our home- 
liest work, our closest love, with wider and more en- 
during scenes, we speak of " the family in heaven 
and earth." 



IX. 



WORKING AND WAITING. 

But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will 
say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit 
down to meat ? And will not rather say unto him, Make ready where- 
with I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and 
drunken ; and afterward thou shall eat and drink ? Doth he thank 
that servant because he did the things that were commanded him ? 
I trow not. So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all these things 
which are commanded you, say, "We are unprofitable servants : we 
have done that which was our duty to do. 

Luke xvii. 1-10. 

My remarks in the present discourse will be drawn 
from the general scope of this passage, and therefore 
I have taken the entire illustration which our Saviour 
uses here. In these words He sets forth our relations 
and our obligations to God — our obligations of patient 
and reverent service. And thus, as it appears to me, 
Christ answers a problem. For there may be some 
who are disposed to reason to this effect : " God," they 
may say. " has called us into existence without our 
own will. He has placed us in this world and sur- 
rounded us with these conditions. Is He not, then, 

[137] 



138 



SELECT SERMONS. 



bound to provide for us ? Does the mere fact of our 
creation involve obligation on our part ? Or, speak- 
ing from the highest moral ground, is there not an 
obligation on the part of the Deity respecting us?" 

Now to this question there is an answer in the con- 
dition of things. God does see to our general well- 
being. He has abundantly provided for us. He per- 
petually ministers to us. And though instances of 
suffering and misery so widely prevail, these grow out 
of conditions absolutely necessary to the highest 
scheme of being. But these natural premises being 
assumed, the question comes up — What is our rightful 
attitude towards God ? What should be the attitude 
not merely of a servant towards his master, but even 
of a child towards a parent ? 

Christ answers this question in the passage before 
us. The answer is, that we are to work and to wait. 
We are to refer our ends to God's ends ; and doing 
all we can that is right, and good, and true, still we 
must feel that we do no more than our duty. We only 
then fulfil the purpose of our being. Over and above 
our positive obligations we make nothing, and in no 
way do we put God in debt to us. 

This is the substance of the answer which occurs 
when we set ourselves to inquire — " What is the end 
of life ? What ideas and what results does it involve ? 
Am I to consider this end as fulfilled only in that 
which serves me ? — which immediately benefits, or at 
least gratifies myself ? Or, independent of all other 
considerations, regardless of my own immediate inter- 
est or welfare, am I obligated, first of all, to serve 



WORKING AND WAITING. 



139 



truth, righteousness, goodness — in other words, God ? " 
This you perceive is a very practical point, running- 
very deep into our modes of thought and action. 

Now I need not dwell upon the way in which men 
often answer this question. I need not tell you how 
apt they are to test all things by their own standard. 
Thus — some man finds his course of existence troubled. 
Disappointment and calamity fall into his lot. And 
straitway he begins to arraign Providence. The entire 
universe becomes a dark web of mystery — simply be- 
cause he is troubled. He makes himself the standard ; 
he starts and measures from this little selfish centre ; 
forgetting that things are not to be tried by this test, 
but by general ends, — God's ends. Another man shrinks 
from the claims of duty, and shrinks from them because 
they involve personal loss and suffering — overlooking 
the fact that the single question to ask is — "Is it duty?" 
If so, we must respond to the call, and leave conse- 
quences with God — for we are here to do His work, 
and wait upon His movements. The conclusion, then, 
is plain, that our view of life, our view of events, our 
entire course of thought and action, will be profoundly 
affected by the fact whether we regard things in this 
selfish light, or whether we take our interpretation 
from the spirit of the passage before us — where the 
servant who has been working then waits — and still 
observing his master's will, does no more than he was 
bound to do. 

This is the general train of thought awakened by the les- 
son in the text. Let us now proceed to consider some 
specific suggestions growing out of it. We may notice. 



140 



SELECT SERMONS. 



I. The suggestion of Faith. 
II. Of patient Waiting. 
III. Of Humility. 

I. In the first place, then, here is the suggestion of 
Faith. These verses, as I conceive, are not discon- 
nected with those which immediately precede them. 
Christ had been teaching the doctrine of forgiveness. 
He told His disciples if a brother trespassed against 
them seven times in a day, and seven times in a day 
turned again, saying — "I repent !" they were to forgive 
him. Upon this they cried out, " Lord, increase our 
faith." He answered them by describing the power 
of faith, and then proceeds with the illustration before 
us. It appears, then, that by this simile He meant to 
illustrate the duty of faith — faith in God, faith in 
Christ — the obligation to cherish this in the most try- 
ing conditions. How could they forgive a brother 
seven times, and seventy times seven? They could 
not do it, if they referred merely to their own will, 
to their own selfish impulses. But they would be ena- 
bled to do this if they deferred to the Divine will ; if 
they gathered strength in faithful obedience to the 
injunction of the Saviour. And this much they were 
bound to do, because they were God's servants ; and 
the servant must not work his own will, but his master's. 

And now I urge upon you this truth — that faith is 
not merely a privilege. It is a duty. We are to cher- 
ish it as a duty, looking away from ourselves with 
obedience and resignation to the Divine will. That 
faith is worth little that does not summon up in our 



WORKING AND WAITING. 



141 



souls the energies of obedience and deference. In fact, 
mere quiet belief and acceptation can hardly be called 
"faith' 7 at all. The acquiescent Christianity of our 
churches and institutions ; the Christianity that says — 
" Lord, we believe/' but never was so keenly pressed 
by a doubt as to cry out — " Help thou our unbelief," — 
is a very different thing from Christian faith. " Lord, 
we believe !" cry the respectable congregation, rank 
after rank, pew after pew, as the sonorous prayers echo 
in their ears ; as the pious homily patters upon their 
drowsy souls. " Lord, we believe all this, amen ! " as 
decorous and prudent people ought to do, and then go 
forth to show that we do not believe a word of it. 
" Lord, we believe !" in solemn uniformity of faith ; as 
rows of waxen people might, with glassy eyes and me- 
chanical nod of affirmation. " We believe that Thy 
religion is one of great spiritual interests and lofty 
self-sacrifice," and, so believing, we live for ourselves 
alone ; we buy and sell and get gain, without regard 
to the moral quality of our dealing. Buy anything 
that will pay ; sell anything that is profitable ; bodies, 
souls, hearts, principles and reputation — worshipping 
the one ideal of worldly good. " Lord, we believe ! — ■ 
believe what is said, that Thou art holy and Thy law 
supreme ;" and, professing thus to believe, we reverence 
nothing. We hold all Divine sanctions secondary to 
political aggrandizement and personal ambition. We 
regard no right but the right of might. We own no 
authority but the desire of our own hearts. We repu- 
diate Thy image in humanity for the image on the 
dollar. We exclude the thought of Thee from senate- 



142 



SELECT SERMONS. 



chambers, and bid Thy oracles be dumb even in the 
churches. " Lord, we believe ! — believe that Thy Son 
has revealed Thy universal Fatherhood, and the broth- 
erhood of all men • and, as the very heart and life of 
His Religion, set forth the great element of charity 
and, believing this, we indulge in strife and hatred. 
We wrap ourselves in bigotry and pride. We turn 
with horror from the common and the unclean. We 
hurl scorn upon the shamed and the abandoned. 
Clothed in comfort, we disbelieve in human sorrow, 
and with the rattle of our haughty chariot wheels we 
drown the moaning of that sea of misery that swelters 
all around us. Yes, " we believe," because it is easy 
to believe. We believe that Thou art good, for we 
are comfortable. We believe in a future state, for it 
does not trouble our present. We believe in Christ ; 
we believe in the Bible ; because we have so been 
taught, and it is easier for us to believe than not to 
believe. 

But now, suppose some blow smites your prosperity, 
and leaves you beaten and bruised among your shat- 
tered hopes. Suppose your " faith " threatens to cost 
you something. Suppose the faith required is faith 
in spite of your own ease. Suppose something occurs 
that sends a ripple of doubt over your -smooth and 
glossy acquiescence ; and for the first time you begin 
to feel the pressure of some reality that makes you 
cry out, " Lord, help Thou my unbelief!" — then you 
will learn the difference between mere assent and gen- 
uine, strenuous faith. 

True faith is born in a struggle. It is that which is 



WOKKING AND WAITING. 



143 



tried, and then is not found wanting. It is something 
which we maintain despite the disappointment of our 
purposes, despite ourselves. It moves us to toil on, 
even though we see no good springing out of our effort, 
and enables us singly and reverently to recognize 
God's will, and so to serve and wait. This was the 
kind of faith those early disciples needed. They were 
expecting an immediate and conspicuous triumph of 
the Messiah. They were looking for His speedy en- 
trance into His kingdom. They were saying — " Lord, 
we have forsaken houses, lands, parents, children, 
wives ; and what shall we have therefor ? " They 
were desiring to sit one on the right hand of Jesus, 
another on his left. And when these splendid visions 
began to melt away into the cold reality ; when they 
began to apprehend the long lapse of sorrow and of 
struggle that lay between themselves and their crowns ; 
when the real character of their mission broke upon 
them, and such difficult precepts as this respecting for- 
giveness revealed the conflict that must take place 
within as well as without ; they exclaimed, " Increase 
our faith." And then they were told what that faith 
is — a postponement of selfish ends ; a deference to the 
divine will, serving God, waiting upon Him until He 
shall make known His own good time and way. 

And, therefore, this must be the character of our 
faith as well as theirs. Faith in the season of sunshine 
is no faith. It is but an easy tradition, or decent 
assent. But to hold on when clouds and darkness are 
round about us, and our hearts feel the pressure of a 
terrible mystery — this indeed is faith's victory. To 



144 



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cling to the true thing, to do the right thing, when 
evidently it is the best policy to do so, is well enough, 
but in such conduct there is no energy of faith. To 
perform the righteous act and stand by the truth when 
there comes no immediate reward, when for ourselves 
only sorrow and suffering come, but still to stand firm 
and act, because we mean to serve God and no mere 
standard or policy of our own— this is something very 
different from formal assent, this is genuine faith. 

And it is only a truism to say, that the spring of 
such faith is the recognition of the divine will as su- 
preme, and of our selfish ends as merged in God's ends. 
Then in our own immediate and personal suffering 
there is no mystery ; at least, there is nothing to make 
us doubt or fail because the right seems to be a suffer- 
ing or losing cause. Have a faith to toil, and a faith 
to wait, looking in ourselves for nothing else ; like the 
servant who, when he comes in from the field, girds 
himself and attends upon his master, and in all this 
merits no thanks, doing only the things that are com 
manded him. 

II. In the next place, the text yields the suggestion 
of patient waiting. Work for God is the idea, and 
then wait upon God. Now, I ask, is it not easier to 
do the former than the latter ? Is it not easier to 
work than to wait? Calm, patient faith is labor. 

"They also serve who stand and wait." 

A man may be quite willing to do the work of duty, 
and yet if he does not immediately discover the pro- 



WORKING AND WAITING. 



145 



ceeds of that work he begins to fret and complain. 
How many are there, for instance, who are sceptical 
respecting the claims of principle, if the benefit of 
obedience to it does not immediately enure to them- 
selves. They quote the maxim, " Honesty is the best 
policy, 77 and have come to the conclusion that the 
maxim is true. They are convinced that it is better 
to do right than to do wrong. Sometimes, however, 
it may appear that honesty is not the best policy. 
Sometimes the right is balked and defeated while the 
wrong is successful. What then ? Is there any less 
claim upon them, and upon all men, to keep still the 
honest post, and to do the right thing ? We are to 
be honest not for the benefit that accrues to ourselves, 
but because it is right to be honest. 

Let me ask, then, are we not apt to look for some 
immediate benefit in duty, some direct and speedy 
good to ourselves, as offset, or wages, for all our 
worldly sacrifices ? How long am I prepared, how 
long are you or other men prepared, for the sake of 
pure, abstract principle, to sustain " the tug of war/' 
and to support it while it continues to be a losing 
game ? 

My brethren, we are fond enough of the spectacle of 
valorous duty — fond of the romance of principle, when 
we can see it delineated upon some great world-wide 
canvas, while we sit comfortably still to look at it. 
Then we say — " Duty is a grand thing, and especially 
is it a grand thing when men hold on and suffer for it, 
and patiently wait for its postponed victory ; not 
knowing whether in their time it will gain a victory 
7 



146 



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at all — only they are conscious that it is duty, and 
they suffer and wait on this account alone." Permit 
me to illustrate this by an instance taken from our 
own history. There was no battle, no splendid suc- 
cess, in our Revolutionary war, which yields such in- 
spiration as that winter of dismay and suffering, when 
the little army of Washington crouched naked and 
starving in their miserable huts, sleeping in the frost 
on the " cold, bleak hill," and with the blood of their 
bare feet printing the snows of Yalley Forge. No 
victory to cheer them ; no shock of conflict to arouse 
them ; there was nothing to hold them together but 
the simple bond of fidelity. To make that hungry, 
ragged group the most glorious picture in our Revolu- 
tionary annals, there was nothing but the splendor of 
devotion to a principle that absorbed all personal con- 
siderations. Had success actually been in their hands, 
it would have been comparatively easy to suffer for 
the possession of it. Or even if they could have been 
struggling for success in " the heady currents of a 
fight," the object might have seemed near enough to 
warm and inspire them. But to stand, as it seemed, 
far off from the victory ; to see in that leaden winter 
sky no rift of promise ; instead of the drums that 
should summon them to conflict and therefore to hope, 
to hear only the wind rattling through the naked 
woods, and to behold in that waste of snow as it were 
the winding-sheet of liberty; and yet to stand with 
their frozen feet unflinching at their posts, believing 
that in some way the right would triumph, at least 
believing that right is right ; waiting upon God's will 



WOKKING AND WAITING. 



147 



now they had done all they could — it is this that makes 
that episode of 1778 so sublime. 

Yes, this is a great thing when represented on the 
historical canvas ; it is a great thing anywhere, be- 
cause it is not an easy thing to do. Man will fight 
for principle, he will sacrifice for principle : but it is 
a harder matter to icait for principle. It is a trial of 
our moral and religious strength to do the right thing, 
and see no immediate or palpable good growing out 
of it. And I say we can do this only as we recognize 
the fact that we are bound to duty ; that it is a higher 
will than our own we are serving, and therefore we 
are to work and wait, not fretting about results. 
Work for God, and then wait upon God. 

We must learn to wait upon God so far as results 
are for His own glory, and for the vindication of His 
sovereignty. We must not grow peevish because 
justice is balked and truth retarded in the world. 
Act for justice, speak the truth, toil in the furrows of 
Providential opportunity — that is our part. But let 
us not confound devotion to God's service with the 
vanity of personal success. Sometimes the Divine in- 
dications say to us plainly — " Work sometimes they 
say — " Gird yourselves, and wait upon me." And for 
this patient waiting upon God's processes, we some- 
times need indeed to gird ourselves far more than for 
active effort. 

Now all this does not imply that we should ever 
stop working in a good cause. Waiting docs not 
always imply stopping ; especially does it not imply 
indolence and indifference. Some men lose their 



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interest m a great and good cause, unless they are 
continually in the froth of excitement. It becomes us 
to feel that delay may be only a quiet process, and 
waiting a strenuous service. But we must not be too 
hasty in anticipating the triumph of a goocL cause. 
We should not expect to see all in our own day, and 
to behold the harvest immediately springing up in 
places where we have driven the plough and sown the 
seed. Do you expect with one stroke of the hammer, 
or with all the hammering you may make, to shatter 
the great gates of sin, and let in the millenial day- 
light at a single burst ? It is none of your business 
whether that victory comes now or a hundred years 
ahead. Work and wait, that is your office. Provi- 
dential results are sure, but Providential processes 
seem slow. God's work is a long husbandry. All 
history is the process ; a work of ploughing and sow- 
ing, and harrowing and weeding, and weeping and 
sweating, ay, even of blood and tears. Paul plants, 
and Apollos waters. Other men labor, we enter into 
their labors. The long, broad field, widening and 
lengthening through the ages ! But God gives, and 
God himself takes the increase. Go out into the field 
and work, 0 man, in your day and generation. Do 
something for truth and righteousness. But fret not 
because all is not done at once. Come in when the 
sun goes down ; come in when the arm grows weak ; 
come in old, bowed head, whitened with still unsuc- 
cessful toil — come in and gird yourself, and wait upon 
Divine Providence now that you have toiled. The 
process will go on. The harvest is sure. Yours was 



WORKING AND WAITING. 



149 



to work, not rejoice. Yours was the spade, not the 
sickle. 

And, surely, if our work is thus only an item in a 
process, it is a great consolation to think that it is a 
part of a process, unfolding from day to day, with 
every rising and setting sun, with every waxing and 
waning moon, with every advancing and receding age. 
It helps us to take right views of righteous work. It - 
prevents our being crotchety and impracticable. 
Some men who stand fast in a good cause, stand too 
fast. They will not consent to carry out a part of 
their work, unless they can carry out the whole of it 
at the same time. The right thing must be done all 
at once, or nothing right must be done. Now, look- 
ing over the field of Providential labor, the view is 
broad, — but " the eye sees further than the hand can 
reach," and our progress over that field is step by 
step. Let our aim be the largest possible, let our act 
be the best available. Let us keep aiming and shoot- 
ing ; but let us not keep aiming without shooting, 
even though we have to shoot low. We wish to de- 
spoil evil of all its armor, but it is no compromise to 
take from it a single weapon, when we can take that, 
and when we can take no more. It is great folly, folly 
springing out of the notion that we have all the work 
to do, and the final victory to win, — it is great folly 
to refuse any concession from the wrong, because it 
will not yield all at once. It is a stubborn conflict, 
this conflict between good and evil in the world. The 
latter may not be defeated at one sweep. But when- 
ever it gives way a single foot, advance and take it! 



150 



SELECT SERMONS. 



For our work is to do so much in the Providential 
process — as much as we can, if not as much as we 
would — doing God's work as far as He gives us to do, 
and waiting upon Him for results. 

And so our interest in the great work of truth and 
righteousness does not terminate with the limit of our 
own lives. It does not slacken when we are borne 
helpless from the field. Were we destined to immor- 
tality upon earth, our regards and solicitudes might 
centre in ourselves, but now we bequeath them to those 
who will come after us ; we weave our heart-strings in 
among the corporate humanity, and live in the entire 
race. Part of a long host are we. To-day in the 
rear rank of generations who have marched onward, 
to-morrow in the front rank of generations that are 
yet to come. The grand army of God and humanity ! 
Passing the sacred standard from hand to hand, from 
age to age, inspired by a hereditary trust and 
mindful of a common cause. We cannot help having 
an interest in those who are to follow, because they 
are to carry forward the achievement in which we 
have been engaged. So, let us do God's work without 
impatience as to results, waiting for His own good 
time and way. 

Moreover, let me say that this is a doctrine for our 
own personal and private conduct, as well as for our 
action in the world at large. How much strength we 
may derive from this method of working and waiting, 
in all deferring to the divine will ! For this is only 
another way of saying — Obey your own conscience, 
and take consequences with patience. Hear what the 



WORKING AND WATTING. 



151 



divine voice within you says, heed it, and then let the 
world without say what it will. Act as an obedient 
servant of God, waiting upon Him in these authentic 
utterances of the soul, and your responsibility is dis- 
charged. Let the world abuse you ; let the world lie 
about you ; let all external good be confiscated. Do 
you just stand in this obedient attitude, conscious of 
the approval of the Divine Master, and live it all down. 
Live down the lies, and shame the abuse, and vindi- 
cate to the world what the world cannot help respect- 
ing — the presence of an upright, God-sustained spirit. 
And do this not out of regard to self, but out of deference 
to the supreme will, because it is your duty to do it. 

III. I will urge upon you one other lesson drawn 
from the text. It is the lesson of humility. " Doth 
he thank that servant because he did the things that 
were commanded him ? I trow not. So likewise ye, 
when ye shall have done all these things which are 
commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants : 
we have done that which was our duty to do." 

In all the conduct of man there is no lawful occasion 
for pride. For of what has he a right to be proud ? 
Analyze the root and ground of any such feeling, and 
test its authenticity. The moment the conception set 
forth in the text flashes upon us — the conception of 
ourselves as servants and dependents of a Divine Mas- 
ter — that moment all our pretensions vanish. I ask — 
what do we own, what do we acquire, that we should 
be proud of? Is it of what we have received from 
others ? Some men have a pride of birth, a pride of 



152 



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family. Because their fathers did something, they 
transfer an hereditary merit to themselves, and strut 
before the ^world in a peacock vanity of crests and 
emblazonry. But if that ancestral achievement was 
really meritorious it cannot be transferred. Its glory 
was in the self-conscious doing, not in the superficial 
renown ; and it is all the more a rebuke to these that 
they have done nothing themselves, and are only liv- 
ing upon what their fathers did ; mere parasite moths, 
clinging to old embroideries and feeding upon heraldic 
cloth ! Pride of birth ! God made them as He made 
the poorest drudge out of common clay. And, as to 
environments, the Kihgliest Being ever born in -the flesh 
lay in a manger. What a miserable thing to see clay 
in brocade and velvet, shrugging its shoulders at clay 
in coarse woolen and with black thumbs ! 

Or, are we proud of external graces — merely exter- 
nal, nothing more ? Beauty of person, or symmetry 
of form ? Then we are proud of something which has 
no moral value, and that is not exclusively human. 
We have no more reason for pride than the lily of the 
field has, that neither toils nor spins. 

Are we proud of what we have gained, or of what 
we have done ? Is it our wealth ? Do we say — " We 
have made it, in the strength of our arms and the 
sweat of our brows?" How made it, my friend? 
Whence came the skill of the busy brain, the cunning 
of the right hand, the blessing of robust health. All 
these things, — are they not munificent donations from 
the Master of all ? talents lent, not exclusively our own ? 

Or are we possessed with pride of intellect? Why 



WOKKING AND WAITING. 



153 



should we be proud of tins any more than of those 
external gifts and graces ? For our employment of it 
we are responsible, the capacity itself is not our own 
achievement. Or if it is what we have acquired by 
exercise of the intellect, be assured we acquire very 
little that is good or great in the spirit of rampant 
pride. We only gain knowledge by humble study, 
and stooping low. All scientific research is waiting 
upon God. It is patient looking to see what He 
reveals in this wondrous book of the heavens and the 
earth. This is the condition of all truth. It is abro- 
gation of mere self — it is humility. 

Thus you perceive that every legitimate foundation 
of pride seems to be torn from beneath our feet. No 
shred of it can we cling too, except, perhaps, upon one 
point. We may possibly be proud of the good we do. 
Proud of our alliance even with the Divine Benefactor, 
in diffusing help and blessedness abroad. But now 
see how this too — this the last, the most subtle basis 
of pride — see how this is stricken away by the fact 
set forth in the text — " We have done no more than 
was our duty to do." " We are unprofitable servants." 
We have made nothing for God, so to speak. We 
have done nothing that we have not been commission- 
ed to do. We have given nothing that we have not 
received. And I need not add, that the more we ad- 
vance in moral effort, the clearer we perceive this 
truth. The highest are always the most humble. 
Those who see widest are most aware of what is yet 
to be done. And so the lesson of all true working 
and waiting is the lesson of humility. 
7* 



154 



SELECT SEKMONS. 



One observation in closing. I must call your atten- 
tion to the fact that by the very process thus indicated 
— the process of working for God and waiting upon 
God — our own highest welfare really is ensured. After 
we have served we may sup. We partake, after all, 
of the divine feast, and the result is far better for us 
than if we had obeyed our own selfish impulses, and 
sought immediate gratification. 

By that very discipline of service and of waiting, 
our own best powers are unfolded, our spiritual nature 
is exalted, and we go in to sit down with Abraham, 
Isaac, and Jacob, and all true servants of God. 

For see what this very working and waiting does in 
itself imply. This postponement of selfish desires for 
something higher, implies our alliance with something 
higher. It implies that the worker and waiter is not 
a mere machine that works blindly, that waits uncon- 
sciously — that he is not a mere animal whose outlook 
is confined to this horizon of time and sense. It indi- 
cates a capacity of spiritual force, a fitness for immor- 
tal life, in the right use and apprehension of which the 
servant becomes a son. The office of a servant, pa- 
tiently held and faithfully discharged, trains and edu- 
cates him to a free and filial heirship. 

So let every one of us stand in the posture of 
reverence and of service towards God, working and 
waiting, in faith and patience, and humility. Work 
and wait, 0 sufferer for conscience' sake ! 0 man in 
the toil of duty ! Work and wait, 0 ye disheartened 
and sorrowing ! From your point of view all is mys- 
tery, but refer everything to Him who is the master 



WORKING AND WAITING. 



155 



of all. Work and wait, my brethren, remembering 
that with the best we do, we are unprofitable servants. 

Yet even this unprofitable service He rewards with 
munificent grace. He make it the vehicle of our own 
highest blessedness. And after all our working and 
our waiting, He permits us to eat bread in His 
heavenly kingdom. 



X. 



TRUST. 

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart. — Proverbs m. 5. 

These few words contain a great deal. They in- 
volve the most important and practical truth that can 
be urged upon the mind of man. Indeed, I may say 
that they exhibit the very essence of religion. I mean 
religion as distinguished from mere philosophical 
belief, or from practical morality. In the course of 
my remarks, I shall have occasion to show that the 
roots of religious life and of moral conduct are the 
same. But this, I repeat, is especially the element of 
religion, its very spirit — trust — " Trust in the Lord 
with all thine heart." 

In the present discourse, then, let us in the first 
place consider this principle of trust as constituting 
the spirit and potver of religion ; and, in the second 
place, consider its relation to some of the special char- 
acteristics of religion. 

I. It may be that many of you have been perplexed 
with the question — " Why this strenuous demand for 
faith ?" — for I use faith and trust here as synonymous 

(156) 



TRUST. 



157 



terms — " Why this strong demand for faith, or trust ? 
Why is such a peculiar excellence, or supremacy, as- 
signed to this quality ? " For instance, the writer of 
the Epistle to the Hebrews sets forth in glorious array 
those personages who were remarkable for their faith ; 
and declares that without this sublime trust it is im- 
possible to please God. Whence, then, this promi- 
nence, we may say this almost solitary honor, assigned 
to faith — its exhibition as the very sum and essence of 
religion? We may suggest that the importance of 
this sentiment is owing to the greatness of its objects. 
Why, then, are not these rather objects of sight ? Why 
has God always hidden Himself from human eyes ? 
Why does He call upon His children to trust in an 
unseen Being ? Why has He visited the souls of men 
only in faint suggestions ; or in motions of His great- 
ness behind these dim, material vails ? Or, instead of 
His audible word and manifest presence, why have we 
now only revelations that tell us about Him ? And oh ! 
why are not these spiritual realities and spiritual glo- 
ries which are peculiarly associated with Him, things 
of open vision ? Why do we not see those supreme 
facts which command our obedience, and those immor- 
tal delights towards which we stretch our longing 
desires ? 

I appeal here to your own consciousness. I ask, if 
in your minds there has not often arisen a wish that 
the things of faith might be things of sight ? Have 
you not desired to behold with open vision, at least the 
fringe of that glory which, concealed by the drapery of 
time and sense, encircles our world of mortal care ? 



158 



SELECT SERMONS. 



Now the general answer to these suggestions appears 
in the fact that through faith we derive a culture, or 
discipline, for our higher nature ; which culture or dis- 
cipline is incompatible with sight. But more specifi- 
cally I observe, and in the present discourse propose 
to illustrate, that that peculiar phase of faith which is 
called " Trust in God," is connected with the deepest 
springs of our personal life, and with its noblest devel- 
opments. 

And I begin my illustration of this point by observ- 
ing, that the radical evil of atheism — I speak now not 
merely of speculative but of practical atheism, — atheism 
of the heart and life — the radical evil of atheism is 
the moral and spiritual loss it creates by removing the 
sources of a lofty trust, an inspiring and uplifting 
dependence upon something higher and better than 
ourselves. Long ago it was said by Lord Bacon, that 
" Man, when he resteth and assureth himself upon Di- 
vine protection and favor, gathereth a force and faith 
which human nature in itself could not obtain ; there- 
fore," continues he, " as atheism is in all respects hate- 
ful, so in this, that it depriveth human nature of the 
means to exalt itself above human frailty." And it 
must be evident to you, that all our growth comes 
from looking and clinging to that which is above and 
beyond ourselves. Indeed, just consider for a moment 
how this law of dependence runs all through the mate- 
rial world, and each thing in nature is helped and 
blessed by it. Nothing is complete in itself. Nothing 
contains in itself all the resources of its own welfare. 
Each thing trusts in something else — the root that 



TRUST. 



159 



clings to the soil ; the flower that struggles to the 
light ; the wild bird in its nest ; and " the cattle upon 
a thousand hills." Land and sea hold each other in 
the embrace of mutual need. The broad woods lean 
to the evening wind, and spread out their myriad 
leaves in supplication for the rain. The sacred order 
of the family — is it not bound together by the law of 
dependence ? Through his trust in a father's wisdom 
and a mother's love, the child grows into the experi- 
ence and is trained for the work of life. And as 
nothing is so beautiful and so safe for it as its humble 
reliance, its calm rest in those encircling arms — so 
nothing is so odious and so dangerous as the attitude 
of the young man who has grown, or, rather, lapsed, 
into self-confidence, and drops the curb of restraint 
while he runs away with the reins. Oh ! that is the 
great period of temptation in life, that is the hour of 
humiliating and fatal downfalls, — when a young man 
confounds growth in stature with growth in soul, and 
sees nothing on earth that seems higher or that knows 
more than himself. The wise man grows in wisdom 
through a healthy self-distrust — not morbid self-depre- 
ciation — but, I say, healthy self-distrust. By humility 
and lowly confidence he climbs the intellectual heights, 
and emerges into broader fields of truth. Always do 
we need to recognize something higher and greater, in 
order that we ourselves may become higher and 
greater ; and it is with the inspiration of trust that we 
cling to it and rise by it. 

We may conceive, then, what man's condition would 
be, if in all this universe he could recognize nothing 



160 



SELECT SEEMONS. 



higher and better than himself, and could discover 
nothing without him, or in contact with him, but mate- 
rial processes. Nor could the aid which he receives 
from beings like himself — aid similar to that which 
comes from the dependence of one thing upon another 
in the natural world — satisfy his wants, or solve the 
problems of his existence. For his true development, 
his strength, his peace, man needs the assurance of 
an infinite wisdom, power, and goodness, conscious 
of him and sympathizing with him — -and he finds this 
when he trusts in the Lord with all his heart. And I 
say Atheism, whether it be of the speculative or the 
practical sort, is sufficiently refuted by the bare fact 
that it breaks up the ground of this necessary trust. 
Arguing from the very structure of our being, from the 
demands of our life, there must be a God and Father in 
heaven, — the high and holy One who inhabiteth eterni- 
ty, and in whom we live, and move, and have our being. 

And the point which I especially urge is this — that 
the efficacy of this quality is in the very fact that it is 
trust, not open vision. What conditions might coexist 
with such vision I do not pretend to say. Even then, 
even in the possession of full sight, it is evident that 
man would still feel his dependence upon God. But 
then there would be no room for what we specially call 
trust, for that implies something connected with its 
object that is unseen, unrealized. We can conceive of 
a state of things in which all truth would be revealed 
at once to the intellect, and expand in one glorious 
surface before its gaze. But we cannot conceive of 
such a state of things coexisting with anything like 



TRUST. 



161 



intellectual progress, or mental discipline. No more 
can we conceive of a condition of open sight respect- 
ing God and spiritual realities coexisting with the 
personal freedom and the self-precipitation implied in 
a genuine act of trust. For then it would not involve 
the discipline of trust ; it would be the compelled ac- 
knowledgment of sight. Every wise father knows the 
benefit of educating his child to have confidence in 
him — to put forth voluntary trust in his promises and 
his character. But all this benefit would be lost — there 
would not be any such thing as trust — if there were 
not something hidden, something not yet given or fully 
made known. It is a blessed thing that a child should 
confidently walk by his father's side, and put forth his 
hand to his father's hand ; not for what that father 
does, but for what he believes that father is. 

So, in the relations of man to the Infinite Father, 
there is a beneficial discipline in the exercise of his 
confidence, in the putting forth of trust, which could 
not be were he living in a universe of open sight. So 
something in this great scheme is not yet given, or 
fully revealed ; something is hidden. Truth is like 
the compass, valuable just where there is no visible ob- 
ject, no guiding light ; then with trembling assurance 
still pointing to the star that shines, fixed and eternal, 
above the changeful waves and beyond the clouds. 

This, then, is the answer to those who wonder why 
religion is so essentially identified with faith, or trust, 
and who ask why the great objects of this trust are 
not objects of instant vision. This is why it consti- 
tutes the very spirit and poiver of religion. 



162 



SELECT SERMONS. 



II. But, in the next place, let us proceed to consider 
this principle of trust in its relations to some of the 
special characteristics of religion. There are two or 
three of these characteristics involving this principle 
of trust, to which I will now call your attention. 
These are 

I. Obligation. 
II. Incitement. 

III. Consolation. 
Or, we may call these 

I. Devotion. 
II. Power. 
III. Calmness. 

" Trust in the Lord with all thine heart." Let us 
see how a practical compliance with this injunction 
bears upon each of these characteristics. 

In the first place, then, I ask you to consider how 
necessary this sentiment of trust is to all genuine 
devotion. By this term " devotion," here, I signify 
two things. I include under this head, obedience, and 
also worship and supplication. 

I maintain that without trust in the Lord there can 
be no efficient moral service. Now I will not go so 
far as to say that even an atheist cannot be a man of 
correct moral deportment. But I do say that in the 
atheist's theory there is no sanction binding him to 
absolute morality. That is, the sources of his moral- 
ity are not — according to his own confession they can- 
not be — from above, but from beneath. To his view, 
there is no infinite law-giver out from the realm of 
transcendent authority revealing the eternal right. 



TRUST. 



163 



There is only a sphere of expediency, and this is all 
enclosed within considerations of his own personal 
well-being, and perhaps certain social harmonies in the 
world about him. The claims of obedience and recti- 
tude all come from the demands of his own organism, 
from his own animal instincts and his selfish nature. 
His morality is based on physiology ; since, agreeably 
to his theory, there is nothing in himself or others more 
to be respected than matter, and the laws and forces 
of matter. If he is a prudent man he will not indulge 
to excess, because that will damage his physical sys- 
tem, and perhaps extinguish his animal life — the only 
life which, as he says, he has. It is probable that he 
will not injure his neighbor, because, in the first place, 
he has generous sympathies, and, in the next place, the 
injury may rebound upon himself. His decalogue, 
therefore, is physiological ; carved in protuberances 
on the skull, or written in the foldings of the nerves. 
His golden rule is the line of selfish prudence. His 
kingdom of heaven — for every man must have some 
kind of a kingdom of heaven — is discovered by the 
dissecting-knife and the stethoscope, and is maintained 
by a system of dietetics. Men are often better than 
their creed, and I do not affirm that he will act upon 
the doctrine that morality is merely expediency, or 
that an undetected wrong is as good as the right. 
But I merely say that in consistency with his theory 
morality and expediency are identical, and there is no 
absolute right or wrong. There is no lofty Sinai tow- 
ering above the cloud-canopy of this world, from which 
the law comes down through trumpet blasts and light- 



164 



SELECT SERMON'S. 



nings ; but only a plain of sensuous reality, upon which 
we may build our altars of impulse, and worship, if 
we will, the golden calf. 

But I am disposed to be just upon this point. I 
cannot see that this system of physiological and social 
prudence is essentially much lower than what has been 
fitly styled " other-worldliness." The only difference 
being that, in the one case, a man regulates his con- 
duct by earthly things in a selfish way ; and in the 
other case he regulates his conduct by heavenly things 
in a selfish way. The principles of the one are literal 
loaves and fishes, and the principles of the other are 
spiritual loaves and fishes. Now the man who belongs 
to the first of these two classes lives consistently. He 
says there is no other world than this, he believes there 
is no other world than this, and he makes the best out 
of his conditions that they are capable of. The other 
says, " There is another world;" he professes to believe 
that there is ; and then makes its sanctions just as 
worldly in spirit as if they were all " of the earth 
earthy." The man who lives up to the standard of 
expediency, believing in nothing higher, makes the 
most he can of this world ; but the other makes the 
least of that higher world whose real sanctions are not 
in external rewards, but in the intrinsic blessedness of 
goodness, and in the interior life and glory of divine, 
self-sacrificing love. 

Let me ask, where is the sharp distinction between 
those who speculatively maintain an atheistic theory, 
out of which the morality of expediency is logically in- 
ferred, and those who exhibit a practice in which that 



TKUST. 



165 



kind of morality actually appears. Surely, if we draw 
a distinction at all, it should be in favor of the former. 
For the latter, alas ! have fallen into the slough of 
positive atheistic consequences. Whatever their pro- 
fessions, their conduct shows that they have no real 
trust in the Lord, but in their own selfish expediencies, 
seeking the loaves and fishes without the consecrating 
blessing, and worshipping the golden calf all the years 
of their lives. How many men in business are there, 
who steer by their ledgers, and who virtually act upon 
the principle of making money in any way that they 
can ! How many politicians, eloquent in the cause of 
liberty, whose regard for freedom is the regard of an 
owl for the daylight ! How many like these are there 
who really have any Sinai, or any decalogue, higher 
than some official chair, or more vivid than the stamp 
on a gold eagle ! How many of these have ever con- 
sciously looked up, and said, and realized what they 
were saying — " We trust in the Lord ! " 

And, again, is there any very high fence between 
such as these, and still another class who would say, 
" Morality is not a matter of trust, but simply of ac- 
quiescence. It is that which has been positively enun- 
ciated, and therefore ought to be obeyed ; but which 
might as well be disobeyed, were it not for detection 
and penalty ?" 

He who trusts in the Lord with all his heart, believes 
not merely that God's moral law is enacted, but that it is 
absolute ; believes that it could not be reversed ; that 
in time and eternity it never could be different from 
what it is ; believes that it rests not merely upon 



166 



SELECT SERMONS. 



sanctions which were they taken away would render 
it different, and that it might be violated without 
harm were it not for detection and penalty — but he 
believes that this moral law is essentially just and 
good. He loves it for itself. This man's practical 
morality comes from above, not from beneath — not from 
the realm of mere physiology, or animal instincts, or 
selfishness, or expediency. It is a light from the top, 
streaming down into his soul ; down from the region 
of eternal light, the light in which all holy and immor- 
tal beings dwell ; the light of God's own nature. 
This is the light which has lighted every good and 
true man who has acted in the world : not from rules 
of the sensuous nature and mere prudential considera- 
tions — not from the circle of worldly expedients — 
have such men drawn the strength by which they have 
overcome all obstacles, and the inspiration that has 
lifted them above all mortal frailties, and moved them 
to look out beyond self and beyond the limitations of 
the hour, and to do and suffer and die, and thus help 
and bless the world, and fulfil the noblest ends of 
man's being. Above everything else, they looked and 
trusted in the Lord with all their hearts. 

Now consider, for a moment, the other form of de- 
votion ; that which more commonly goes by the name 
of " devotion." It is hardly necessary to say that all 
prayer is trust in the Lord. I merely ask you to re- 
flect upon the power and blessedness of this act of 
trust. How much strength is there merely in the con- 
fidence of human friendship. Confidence is the very 
heart and life-blood of this friendship. The man in 



TRUST. 



167 



whom we can confide ; who in a generous and loyal 
temper will receive the confession of our weakness, our 
trouble, and our need, and help and counsel us, and 
keep our secret for our service, — he only is our friend. 
And, therefore, while intimacies are common in this 
world, friendships are rare. 

But now here is an Infinite Friend ; one who, 
though, indeed, He knows all our secrets far better 
than we can tell them — far better, indeed, than we 
know them ourselves — permits us to come and pour 
them into His all-hearing ear, to confess our frailties 
and our sins, to ask His counsel, and to precipitate 
ourselves upon His own good-will. Oh, to the soul 
that is actually awake, to the heart that is alive, to 
the nature that is familiar with the great experiences 
of life, what privilege is there like this — the privilege 
of holding communion with that near and Almighty 
Friend, when earthly lovers and friends are all far 
from us, when mortal reliances have crumbled to ashes 
at our feet, when the world is inclement and hostile, 
when no one understands us, when we are weak and 
poor, and cut off from all earthly communion ! And 
yet, there are men who start shallow quibbles about 
prayer, and thrust their conceit of natural laws between 
God and the human soul. As though the deepest in- 
stincts of our humanity were restrained within the 
limit of physical forces, or any net-work of material 
conditions could shut out the access of the Divine 
Spirit to the spirit of man ! The best answer to all 
objections urged against prayer is the fact, that man 
cannot help praying ; for we may be sure that that 



168 



SELECT SERMONS. 



which is so spontaneous and ineradicable in human 
nature, has its fitting objects and methods in the ar- 
rangements of a boundless Providence. Yes, here is 
this provision made for man, that, frail and sinful as 
he is — a little transient speck moving among these 
splendors and immensities of nature — he is permitted 
to draw near to the very throne of Him who upholds 
all these, and finds in every place an audience-chamber 
of the Almighty. This hour how many petitions, how 
many cries of trust and supplication out from the depths 
of troubled and aspiring souls are flying aloft, like 
doves to their windows ! How many are knocking 
at that gate of communion and of mercy, stretching 
out needy hands, who feel an inward assurance that 
an Infinite Hand, in turn, reaches out to them, draw- 
ing them close to the source of omnipotent succor, 
until they are at peace ! 

There are times when nothing of this world can 
aid us ; when wealth, friends, reputation — even if we 
have them — cannot supply our need ; when beautiful 
nature cannot calm or inspire us ; when nothing will 
do but to trust in the Lord with all our heart. And 
in this privilege what an incentive is there for con- 
tinued devotion ! 

But, in the next place, I ask you to consider what a 
strong influence is exerted by this spirit of trust in 
all great or worthy action. Every effort that man 
makes in advance of his present condition is made in 
trust. Watch the movements of the child who is learn, 
ing to walk. It stretches out its hands in tottling 
reliance, and every step is an evolution of faith. 



TRUST. 160 

And in the sublimest procedures of thought, and on 
whatever scale of moral achievement, still must man 
put the forward step of faith. He precipitates him- 
self in trust when he stretches his magnificent calculus 
from planet to planet, or stakes his life for the truth, 
or flings down his gauntlet for the right in the arena 
of the world, even as the child does, venturing on a 
field no wider than the floor of his home, and to a 
goal as near as his mother's arms. All endeavor is 
inspired by trust. The spring of all great endeavor 
is a great trust, pushing men forward to unseen ends, 
away from the fastenings of custom, out into struggle 
and hazard and mystery. So Luther tosses the Pope's 
bull on the burning pile and sets Christendom on fire. 
So Columbus goes in his little vessel far away from 
known land, and finds a fresh green world behind the 
veil. So Hancock and Carroll, trusting in the everlast- 
ing right of freedom, and risking life, fortune, and 
sacred honor, strike the drum-beat that echoes a ound 
the globe. And, still rising in my statement, I say 
that the highest power is the highest trust — is ' Trust 
in the Lord with all thine heart." 

As an illustration of this, take some individual 
experience. Take perhaps the most interesting expe- 
rience that can occur in a man's life. For instance, 
where do we find the inspiration of that great effort 
by which a man overcomes himself ; breaks from *he 
bondage of sinful inclination, and turns to God ? 
Does he find that inspiration in himself — in his own 
capacity for self-control and moral progress ? Alas ! 
if he has had anv deep experience of moral effort at 
8 



# 



170 SELECT SERMONS. 

all, he knows how weak his best resolutions are — how 
vainly he struggles with fixed habits and bosom sins — 
how the surges of appetite dash up against the top- 
lights of reason, and drown the murmurs of con- 
science. It is his trust in the Lord that encourages 
him to struggle on : the conviction that if he is faith- 
ful and does all he can in this inner life conflict. God 
will help him. God will hear his prayers — " Lord, I 
believe, help thou mine unbelief \ n " Cast me not 
away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy 
Spirit from me I" 

Nay, let me ask, What is to encourage a man in this 
mass of guilt and imperfection, to move in the first 
place ? Whence shall the shamed and abandoned 
draw encouragement to turn and strive against the 
evil that is within and around them ? Surely, not 
merely from their fellow-men. Human sympathy 
and help are not very plenty for such as these. The 
world tells the degraded man and woman but little that 
they do not know already. It tells them that they are 
degraded. If not in speech, at least it tells them as 
much in action. What is to inspire them, away down 
there in their utter debasement, to make one effort to 
rise, to take one upward step ? Only that which 
inspired the wretched prodigal as he sat among the 
husks and the swine, — hope in a Father's mercy, trust 
in a Father's love. Let the poor outcast know that 
for him, for her, there is a vast sympathy wider than 
this outspread night-sky, nearer than this vital air, 
searching as the spring winds will soon be searching 
for the roots of flowers, and the seeds that now lie 



TRUST. 



171 



buried under the dead and withered leaves. Let these 
know that even for them there is an exhaustless, wait- 
ing love, drawing nigh, stooping, touching them, in the 
person of Jesus Christ, saying — " Trust in the Lord 
with all thine heart." 

See the inspiration of this trust in public action. 
See what a colossal power the wrong is, hoary with 
the moss of ages, its pinnacles casting a far shadow 
over the earth, propped with conservative bastions, en- 
circled with moats of tradition, buttressed by thrones, 
bastiles, banks, warehouses, churches ! Who will ven- 
ture to assault this ancient condition of things, and 
fling his defiance against its massy walls ? No man in 
his own strength. No man who believes that chance 
rules this world. No man who believes that money, 
talents, policy, numbers, are stronger than truth and 
righteousness. No man who believes that truth and 
righteousness are dependent upon individuals, or gen- 
erations. But he who trusts in the Lord with all his 
heart ; who knows that there is One whose serene and 
steady will, flowing into events, overturns and over- 
turns until He whose right it is shall reign. 

Finally, let us consider the connection of this spirit 
of trust with all-enduring peace. The experiences of 
human life are many and complex ; but its great rules 
are simple. I need not tell you— at least, I need not 
tell anybody who has struggled with any of life's 
greater trials — that there are cases when we must go 
thus far and can go no farther, and must then rest upon 
this as the upshot and conclusion of things — " Trust 
in the Lord." We will suppose that a man has done 



172 



SELECT SERMONS. 



all that lie can in his own sphere of duty. He has 
thrown up all possible safe-guards. And yet he feels 
that he is helpless and exposed. A far mightier power 
girdles him about, and interferes with the issues of his 
being. Some other hand steers this great life-ship in 
which he sails. Some gulf-stream of superior intention 
flows into his lot. There are results which he cannot 
foresee ; there are intrusions that he cannot prevent. 
Misfortune overtakes him, misery engulfs him, poverty 
cramps him, disease catches him, bereavement surprises 
him, death will have him. Surely, my brethren, we 
want some philosophy of the inevitable ! What shall 
be our attitude respecting all these things ? Shall we 
settle down into the stern and gloomy theory of Fate? 
What satisfaction is there in this ? What explanation 
of things ? What inspiration that will lift us above all 
these frailties ? Shall we live in constant anxiety and 
foreboding ? Shall we be all our life-time subject to 
bondage ? Our dearest objects are liable to be shaken 
and removed. Shall we cling to them in frantic de- 
spair, having no resource beyond them, or that remains 
when they go ? Our most tender relationships are 
vulnerable ; our kindred and friends are frail. Shall 
we be in constant dread concerning them, and have no 
peace in present communion? Or shall we commit 
them to providential keeping, — acknowledging the 
infinite love that is all around them and around our- 
selves? They are taken from us. Shall we fall into 
doubt, and in the madness of our sorrow reject all 
consolation ? Or shall we trust in Him who is " the 
God of the living," and in that assurance know that 



TKUST. 



173 



they live also, and thus have an anchor behind the 
vail. 

I will not stop now with any attempt to explain 
why these trials exist. They do exist — and what then ? 
Many of them may be our own work, and these we 
might alter or prevent. But I speak now of things 
that are inevitable. And I say, surely, if we are going 
to live and act, we must have some principle that will 
bear us above all these. We must lay hold of some- 
thing ; we must trust in something. What shall it 
be ? Cold, bleak destiny ? or an infinite and benignant 
power — a Father ? What shall it be — what can it 
be, but " Trust in the Lord ?" 

This, then, it appears to me, is the significance of 
the text. Let me beseech you, though you forget all 
that I have said — do not forget that. And, in clos- 
ing, I will just observe what breadth and nobleness, 
through the operation of this element of trust, re- 
ligion imparts to all our existence. A man's con- 
ceptions and endeavors will be much influenced by his 
environments. Out in the broad field and the free air, 
where man stands face to face with God in nature, and 
discerns the tokens of His wisdom and His goodness 
in the springing grass and the ripening grain, it would 
seem easier to cherish devout thought, and to hold a 
clear, calm faith, than in narrow lanes and cramped 
apartments, shut in from the heavens and the cheerful 
light. But far better than nature does religion furnish 
the broad view, and give a large, free scope. It dis- 
solves and transfigures the limitations of the body, by 
opening the windows and enlarging the prospect of 



174 



SELECT SERMONS. 



the soul. With its grand " Trust in the Lord " it roofs 
us with more than a cathedral, with more than a firma- 
mental vastness. It expands the scope of our vision 
into the boundlessness of immortal hope. It attracts 
us to constant devotion. It inspires us with exhaust- 
less energies. It fills us with an imperturbable and 
victorious peace. 



XI. 



THE EPICUREAN'S MAXIM. 

Let us eat and drink ; for to-morrow we die. 

I, Corinthians xv. 32. 

This alternative, which the Apostle introduces into 
his argument for the resurrection of the dead, shows 
how completely a theory may be shattered by its own 
practical conclusions. The old Epicurean might bold- 
ly maintain the doctrine set forth in the text as an in- 
tegral part of his system. But it would hardly be 
avowed by a member of the Corinthian church. The 
Pagan philosopher saw only the sensual relations of 
existence, and as such made the most of this earthly 
and transient state. He deemed it useless to repine at 
inexorable, destiny, and so he crowned death with 
flowers. Because the opportunity for enjoyment was 
narrow, he would not therefore waste it in gloom, but 
tilled it with banquets. The early Christian looked 
upon the world with far different eyes. He saw it pen- 
etrated by moral sanctions, and held in the hand of 
God. And yet, among those to whom Paul addressed 
this Epistle, there were some who, by denying the res- 
urrection of the dead, broke down the partition between 

(175) 



176 



SELECT SERMONS. 



themselves and their heathen neighbors. They opened 
a way for the same practical results. And, I repeat, 
the Apostle in thus stating these results shows the 
error of the doctrine out of which they spring. It is 
a fair argument. " For us," says the Epicurean, " there 
is only the present : there is only the material world 
without ; there is only sensation within : let us, then, 
eat and drink ; for to-morrow we die. 77 " The conclu- 
sion is a correct one, 77 says the Apostle ; " the conclu- 
sion legitimately follows, if you deny the resurrection ; 
but that very conclusion should cause you to doubt 
your premises. What is the use of all our sacrifice, of 
all our toil, of our surrender of tangible enjoyment for 
the abstractions of faith and the conceptions of duty ? 
Let us indeed eat and drink ; for to-morrow we die. 77 

I repeat, this is a fair argument. And in the pres- 
ent discourse I propose to take up this Epicurean 
maxim and consider it as an interpretation of life ; to 
consider what follows if we accept it, and what follows 
if we reject it. 

In the first place, let us consider it as a theory of 
life in general. Suppose this naked proposition to be 
addressed to us apart from any particular interest or 
passion of the moment : suppose it to be addressed to 
us as the best conclusion to be drawn from the facts 
of our existence — " Let us eat and drink ; for to-mor- 
row we die. 77 I ask any man who hears me — does this 
seem to you a satisfactory conclusion ? Put away for 
the time being anything that seems like a mere tradi- 
tional belief — a conventional opinion or impression. 
Put away everything but that which springs up as a 



THE EPICUREAN'S MAXIM. 



177 



spontaneous faith in your own heart, and stand before 
this naked proposition with this universe stretching 
around you, with your own experience of life, and I 
ask — can you accept this proposition — " Let us eat 
and drink ; for to-morrow we die ? " In other words 
— Let us live only in sensual indulgence ; let us feel 
the thrill of instant pleasure ; let us dismiss all careful- 
ness of conscience ; let us give up all strenuous aims ;' 
for to-morrow we shall be but ashes, and our person- 
ality will be cancelled forever ! I affirm that not 
simply the faith which we have been taught in child- 
hood, and which prevails in churches and creeds, — but 
our souls, our instincts, all that is deepest in our na- 
ture, repels it, and everything without us repels it. It 
is thus repelled not merely as a moral consequence, 
but as a theory of life. 

" To-morrow we die ! We sink out of consciousness 
and out of distinctive being for ever ! ; ' That is the 
theory, however it may be stated, or with whatever 
forms of speculation it may be involved. And I say, 
it is a theory that does not harmonize with things — 
does not answer to fact — does not interpret life. Let 
me take one or two illustrations upon this point. In 
the first place, this theory does not explain the position 
of man in relation to the universe. A writer of our 
day has remarked that animals have no perception of 
space, in any sense of boundless height or depth. This 
faculty is reserved for man. It is for him to measure 
the abysses of the firmament, and span the void that 
lies between the worlds. But this is only one instance 
of a much larger prerogative. It only illustrates in 
8* 



178 



SELECT SERMONS. 



one direction that peculiar attitude which man presents 
as the scholar and explorer of nature. You may de- 
monstrate the affinities which he has with the brute — 
you may exhibit him bound up in the necessities of 
physical law, — still there is left the peculiarity of his 
intellect — the wonder of his achievement and endeavor. 
And now, if you propose the Epicurean maxim and say 
— " Let us eat and drink ; for to-morrow we die" — I 
ask, what is the purpose of man's existence if to-mor- 
row he does really die ? Why from the great deep all 
around are such revelations made to him? Revela- 
tions of truth higher than he has yet attained, revela- 
tions of beauty, of wonder, of splendid mystery ! Why 
has he not an eye like the brute's eye, to glass the 
landscape, but not detect its suggestion ? If he is to 
die to-morrow, why is he not content to-day to graze 
in the hollows of a kindly Providence, and to recline 
upon its up-land slopes, without casting a glance upon 
the immensity that over-arches him, or cherishing a 
thought that " wanders through eternity ?" Why does 
all nature stir in him such reflection ? Why does his 
own heart heave with mysterious echoes to the moan- 
ing of the sea ? Why do the heavens look down upon 
him with such sweet and awful invitation ? For, more 
clearly than I can express it, every man feels that there 
is such a relation between himself and the world in 
which he is placed. It is a very presumptuous propo- 
sition to affirm that the world has been made for him 
alone, but certainly it does wear this aspect of minis- 
tration to the highest faculties of his being : — and 
these faculties reject a proposition so discordant with 



THE EPICUREAN'S MAXIM. 



179 



their own operation and their relation to the world 
without. 

Again : This Epicurean doctrine is incongruous with 
our own experience of human life. There may be cer- 
tain conditions in life when death is welcome ; when 
our mortality is a burden, and we long to cast down 
its load of weariness and pain. But even this morbid 
condition of the human mind is not a desire for anni- 
hilation. It is a hankering after rest — a longing to 
emerge from this entanglement of troubles into a region 
of peace and light. But to sink through the abyss of 
the grave into perpetual unconsciousness, to be struck 
forever from the roll of existence — what heart is so 
benumbed with care or woe that it does not shrink 
from such au end? Moreover, there are consolations 
which make death reconcilable, even to the most in- 
tense lover of this life. Such is the thought that our 
descent into the sepulchre is only the passage to a 
larger state — our momentary eclipse of sight only the 
transition of twilight consciousness into the vision of 
open day ; the thought that although we must lie down 
and die, and bodily quit this pleasant world, we shall have 
more intimate acquaintance, even with its most famil- 
iar things, and " know as we are known the thought 
that although we may walk the fields of earth with 
human feet no more, nor see with eyes that are crum- 
bling back to dust these marvellous processions of nature, 
— the setting suns, the mellow moons, the ripples on the 
summer wheat, the shadows on the mountain's breast, — ■ 
nor grasp the hand of friendship, nor look with answer- 
ing light into the face of love, nor mingle with the 



180 



SELECT SEEMOJSS 



eager tides of enterprise, nor feel the movements of the 
world's great heart ; the thought that still we shall 
see all, feel all, know all, with finer cognizance, or 
else go forth to wider activities and purer joys : — con- 
ceptions like these, I say, may strip the gloom from 
death, even for those whose assurance has not been 
clear and strong. But who would not blench before 
that gulf of endless sleep to which the epicurean points 
when he says — " To-morrow we die ?" 

I repeat, then — this conclusion is incongruous with 
our own conscious desires and instincts. And even 
those experiences which may seem to hold closer affinity 
with such a conception — perplexity and sorrow — even 
these render their verdict against it. For what is the 
appeal that rises out of the depth of human affliction ? 
It speaks of an uncompleted purpose ; of a nature 
balked in its plans, chafing against its limitations, and 
capable of being satisfied with nothing less than im- 
mortal good. " A miserable world," do you say, 0 
Epicurean ? " a wretched and abortive existence, and 
man a poor creature, tormented by pains, cheated by 
promises, fretting at inevitabilities, driven hither and 
thither by currents of chance and soon swept out of 
being : therefore, let us eat and drink ; for to-morrow 
we die ?" I reply, that such a theory does not corres- 
pond with the phenomena of human life ; especially 
human affliction. Sorrow does not predicate annihila- 
tion, but development. There is compensation in all 
things around us ; there must be in this experience. 
The real counter-stroke to the pulse of mortal anguish 
is not the full stop of death, but the vibration of im- 



THE EPICUREAN'S MAXIM. 



181 



mortality. I look upon the trials of life and see what 
they produce, — how they train the human spirit, how 
they refine and elevate it, bringing sweetness out of 
bitterness and strength out of weakness : and there is 
only one explanation of these things. The theory that 
" to-morrow we die " is no explanation. Why, I want 
no other argument here than the sorrow of a mother 
for her child. Here, in ten thousand death-chambers, 
in heathen and in christian lands, is a spectacle that 
the heavens look down upon, and that blends with the 
familiar experiences of human life. Here is that 
quenchless love which held the little form close to its 
bosom as God holds His universe, and felt its awaken- 
ing life throb against its sacred springs. And now 
that love flows on under tears, under the shadow of 
mourning drapery, under the grave-mound, — flows out- 
ward into the immensity of being, feels after its object 
and claims it still. Deep human sorrow, like that 
mother's sorrow — do you argue annihilation in that? 
or, is there not a prophecy in it that with every beat 
of the heart shatters the theory that a troubled life 
has a dark end ? 

The Epicurean's maxim, then, considered as a theory, 
does not explain the phenomena of human existence 
and human experience. And we have a right to 
charge it with this deficiency, in whatever form it is 
expressed or implied. But we arrive at the same re- 
sult when we take up its practical conclusion. Because 
we die to-morrow, is the doctrine,— because we are 
only beings of sense and time, here for a little while 
and then vanishing away, " let us eat and drink." If 



182 



SELECT SERMONS. 



we perish like the brute, like the brute let us live. 
Now if we find that such a standard fails us as a rule 
of conduct, we may conclude that the theory of life on 
which it is founded is false. 

" Let us eat and drink ; let us live only in sensual 
gratification ! " Suppose this proposition seriously 
made to us as comprehending the entire purpose of 
human existence. Is there not something in every 
man's brain, in every man's heart, that rises up and 
refutes it ? Suppose it should be said to you — " Sur- 
render everything to appetite. Banish all restraint ; 
it is only a whim of superstition. Give up all notion 
of spiritual realities ; they are but priests 7 stories. 
Look at the world with unshaded eyes. Nature is 
voluptuous, and the real joy of life is in the spring of 
passion. The universe is all a great banquet-hall. The 
heavens are thronged with festal lights. The earth is 
hung with gorgeous upholstery. And what though 
here and there awful shapes flicker along the walls, 
and sad realities look in ? Drown possible sorrow in 
actual bliss, and snatch the bloom of the present mo- 
ment. True, life passes swiftly, but let it sparkle as it 
runs. The young heart's joys wither soon enough — 
at least we will sip their honey and their dew. Old 
age may come ; death awaits us ; but let each season 
bring its own circumstance. The evening cloud shall 
not vail the morning sunshine. Let the swift-running cir- 
cle of immediate pleasure cut with its flashing sweep the 
shadows of memory and anticipation. Freshen your gar- 
lands in the wine-cup, and bind them dripping about your 
brows. " Let us eat and drink ; for to-morrow we die !' 



THE EPICUREAN'S MAXIM. 



183 



Undoubtedly such solicitation would find answer in 
many hearts. For although happiness, in and of itself 
alone, is not our " being's end and aim," our nature was 
made for joy, and it is an imperishable ingredient in 
the best condition of the soul. There is joy in every 
normal state of being ; there is joy in heaven. Every- 
thing that is contrary to this is evidently abnormal, 
transitional, or in the instrumentality of discipline 
working out to joy. Therefore the human heart nat- 
urally gravitates towards that which promises delight. 
But how long does it take to find out that no true joy 
exists in sensual absorption ? Tell me, some of you 
who have tried life in this way ! Tell me, 0 man of 
the world, how long before the banquet sickens you 
with surfeit, and the couch of luxury becomes a bed of 
restlessness and pain ! How long before the harlot- 
mask of indulgence drops off, and you discover the 
painted deceit and ghastliness ! Nay, I will not 
merely stand up here in this pulpit and preach against 
the Epicurean's doctrine. I will let those who have 
tried it preach for me. People pass by the dissipated 
man, the abandoned woman, with horror and alarm. 
But must we not regard them with deep pity, too, be- 
cause they are so foolish, so mean, so poor in their 
self-abandonment ? I must pity that young man who, 
with a little finery of dress and recklessness of manner, 
with his coarse passions all daguerreotyped upon his 
face, goes whooping through these streets, driving an 
animal much nobler in its conduct than himself, or 
swaggers into some haunt of shame, and calls it — " En- 
joying life ! " He thinks he is astonishing the world ! 



184 



SELECT SERMONS. 



and lie is astonishing the thinking part of it, who are 
astonished that he is not astonished at himself. For 
look at that compound of flash and impudence, and 
say if on all this earth there is anything more pitiable ! 
He know anything of the true joy of life ? As well 
say that the beauty and immensity of the universe were 
all enclosed in the field where the prodigal lay among 
the husks and the swine ! 

Eat, drink, limit life to the circle of the appetites! 
Can anybody do this and be satisfied ? Can he inter- 
pret existence so narrowly as this, and grow to the 
conviction that it was all intended merely for this ? 
His healthy instincts repel the Epicurean's maxim. 
The deepest joy of life does not abide in the senses. 
They decay, they wear out, and still the springs of true 
happiness are undisturbed. What enjoyment remains 
in the affections after the buoyancy of youth has ebbed 
away, and when all bodily vigor is failing — what bliss 
in their own exercise, and in the sympathy which they 
attract ? In the experience of the aged there is often 
the richest joy, a joy with which the mere exhilaration 
of youth cannot be compared. It is a happiness deep 
and calm, into which flow all the springs of memory 
and of hope, — a happiness that makes wrinkles smile, 
and lends to the withered countenance the immortal 
beauty of the soul. I see happiness like this flowing 
serenely towards the grave, growing " brighter and 
brighter unto the perfect day/ 7 and I can understand 
how the highest ideal of life may be comprehended in 
joy. But I learn no such thing from the desecrated 
humanity the thoughtless revelry, the defiant laughter, 



THE EPICUREAN'S MAXIM. 



135 



that says — " Let us eat and drink ; for to-morrow we 
die." 

There is happiness in the wealth which the intellect 
gathers to itself out of the boundless fields of truth — 
happiness in its endeavor and its victory. Every new 
fact is a joy to it. The march of knowledge through 
the cycles of a leaf, through the sweep of the firma- 
ment, is jubilant. All things that are revealed to it 
inspire it not only with instruction and with power, 
but with delight. Until life fails, and the man him- 
self topples inward, this joy cannot fail ; and even 
that change is only the transit-sign that marks its pas- 
sage into a more intimate communion. And, higher 
and profounder than all, there is happiness in that 
faith which " is the substance of things hoped for, the 
evidence of things not seen.'" It is a joy of triumphant 
trust, and of far-seeing vision looking through the 
world, looking beyond death, realizing eternity, know- 
ing the presence of God. 

To the Epicurean's proposition, then — the proposi- 
tion that we surrender everything to the enjoyment of 
the senses — I say, in the first place, that such a course 
of living does not enable us to encounter the problems 
of life ; does not qualify us to meet its trials and its 
end, and that no one can deliberately take up such a 
standard of existence and get along with it. And in 
the next place, if the Epicurean defends his maxim on 
the ground that " happiness is our being's end and 
aim," I reply that, while it is true that joy is an essen- 
tial element in our being, there is no substantial hap- 
piness in sensual indulgence. The joy itself is evan- 



186 



SELECT SERMONS. 



escent ; the organs by which it is appreciated fail ; 
and the true delight of life comes from those very 
sources which this Epicurean philosophy overlooks or 
repudiates. Whatever hypothesis we may entertain 
concerning the purpose of life, before the actual facts 
of life itself, before the experience of every human soul, 
this doctrine — " Let us eat and drink," will not stand 
as a rule of conduct. But if it is not a tenable rule of 
conduct, then the premiss upon which it is based is 
false ; and therefore, in this way we come to the same 
conclusion as before — that the Epicurean's maxim is 
not the true theory of life. 

But now let me ask — if this be so, what follows ? 
You, my hearers, may say — " Why, of course, this Epi- 
curean doctrine is not true, and the preacher has 
expended needless labor in proving it false." But if 
you really think so, I am enabled to press still more 
closely the question — What follows? I answer that 
the truth, the reality of religion follows. Its claims 
upon our faith, our hearts, our lives, follow. There is 
only this alternative — either the Christian System or 
the Epicurean. And the work of arguing against the 
latter is not so superfluous as you may suppose. There 
are a great many who, if they do not deliberately 
adopt it, act from it. There is a desire in their hearts 
that it may be true, and a half-formed conviction in 
their minds that, it is true. They are inclined to nour- 
ish the conception that indulgence is the law of life, 
and that religion is merely a system of conventional 
machinery ; something useful for the very weak and 
the very good. They never think of it as a great 



THE EPICUREAN'S MAXIM. 



187 



reality pressing its claims upon them, or of surrender- 
ing a single appetite to its restraints, or giving up a 
single purpose to its requirements. 

But they constitute a much larger class who practi- 
cally live out Epicurean conclusions. They are not 
the mere slaves of appetite ; their lives are not grossly 
sensual ; and certainly it would startle them to pro- 
pose the doctrine set forth in the text as a deliberate 
rule of life. And yet how much of their action and 
their hope is as if death were the end of us. and this 
condition of existence all ! And upon such as these I 
press the alternative which the Apostle urges : " Let 
us eat and drink ; for to-morrow we die." How does 
this strike you as a practical conclusion ? Surely, 
you may reply that it is a very legitimate conclusion, 
if the theory is true. As a theory, then, how does it 
meet these suggestions of your reason and your heart ? 
" To-morrow we die" — our personal peculiarity is for- 
ever cancelled from the realm of being. Is it indeed 
so ? Do we perish as the autumn leaves perish ? Do 
we die in the sense in which the brute dies ? You re- 
ject this also as a theory, then. The senses may re- 
spond to it, for they are fitted only to the things of 
sense. But there is something within you which can 
hold no terms of agreement with it. What is that 
something ? It is a higher nature, which, both in that 
which it rejects and that which it acknowledges, vin- 
dicates the authenticity of religion, and makes manifest 
the ground of the Christian claim. Be real, be in 
earnest about this matter, I beseech you. Do at least 
this thing. Decide between the Epicurean and the 



188 



SELECT SERMONS. 



Christian view. Accept the former, and then stifle 
these spontaneous convictions, cover up these deep 
instincts, get rid of them, or get along with them as 
you can. Or if you will take instead the truth and 
spirit of Jesus Christ ; if you spurn the Epicurean's 
maxim as incompetent and false ; then, by every prin- 
ciple of consistency and of honesty, I call upon you to 
cherish and exhibit a corresponding life. 



XII. 



IDEALS OF LIFE. 



What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the 
sun ? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh : 
but the earth abideth forever. 

ECCLESIASTES 1. o. 4. 

The most enduring passages in literature are those 
which speak directly to or from the common humanity. 
They either reveal the truth which men long to know, 
or they express the problems which men most deeply 
feel. The verses before us belong to the latter class. 
The question which they contain is a very ancient and 
a very common one. It has moved in the hearts, it 
has fallen from the lips, of men long before the days 
of Solomon, and long since. It is a question as to 
the purpose of human efibrt — as to the purpose of 
human existence itself. " What profit hath a man of 
all his labor which he taketh under the sun ?" 

Two conceptions are blended in human conscious- 
ness — the conception of the transient ; the conception 
of the enduring. All around him man finds symbols 
of permanence and symbols of change ; something 
that passes away, something that " abidetli forever." 
His eye rests on the drifting clouds, on the falling 

(189) 



190 



SELECT SERMONS. 



leaves, on the rapid cycles of seed-time and harvest. 
But, on the other hand, the great frame of the world 
endures, the mountains lift their heads through all time, 
and the ever-changing sea is ever the same. Science 
in its sharp perception may make a reverse estimate of 
these things. It may discover that that which appar- 
ently abides is perpetually flowing away, while all 
these evanescent phenomena may proclaim an eternal 
fact. Nevertheless, things as they appear to our ordi- 
nary eyesight are symbolical of things as they are. 
They represent the two-fold condition of existence — 
the permanent, the transient. And to each of these 
conditions man himself is allied. No flying cloud, no 
autumn leaf, is more sure of dissolution. His genera- 
tions come and go, like the roll of successive waves. 
And yet there is a consciousness of something in himself 
that abides forever. A subtile suggestion of his own 
imperishability insinuates itself even in the challenge 
of scepticism. It finds utterance in the very question 
of the text. What, then, is man himself, who is in- 
volved with both these extremes ? What is the pur- 
pose of his life ? " One generation passeth away and 
another generation cometh : but the earth abideth for- 
ever." In this flowing tide of change he lives and acts. 
But " what profit hath " he " of all his labor which he 
taketh under the sun ?" 

There are at least three methods of solving, or 
attempting to solve, this problem. There are three 
ideals of human life. 

I. The Sentimental, in which predominates the con- 
ception of human existence as transitory. 



IDEALS OF LIFE. 



191 



II. The Worldly, in which this earthly condition is 
practically treated as final. 

III. The Moral, from which point of view the life 
of man is regarded as real. 

Let us now direct our attention to each of these 
ideals in its turn, and endeavor to ascertain which 
best corresponds with all the facts. 

I. What I call the sentimental ideal of life, is that 
which brings into the utmost prominence the transi- 
tory phase of human existence. It is founded upon 
the fact that " One generation passeth away and an- 
other generation cometh." Its symbols are the van- 
ishing clouds, the fading leaves, and all the frail insig- 
nia of the autumn season. Such as these, it proclaims, 
are all human glory and achievement. They are but 
clouds and shadows, and as the emptiness of a dream. 
Like the mists that drive across the heavens and dis- 
solve, so is the entire procession of human history. 
So men are as leaves that flourish for a few brief days, 
and then fade and drop in shrouds of silence in the 
solemn twilight of the year. 

And there may be those who think that this is pecu- 
liarly a religious view, and that it indicates a spiritual 
frame of mind to talk of the transitoriness of all 
human things — of the short possession and little worth 
of all we gain and all we accomplish. But it is not, 
in itself, a religious view of life, or of man's position 
in the present world. I undertake to say that is not 
mainly the conclusion arrived at by the writer of the 



192 



SELECT SERMONS. 



book of Ecclesiastes. There was a sense in which he 
saw that human performance was " vanity." But he 
recognized both terms of our existence, and found that 
all was not vanity. He discovered that it was not 
vanity to fear God, and keep his commandments ; and 
that however futile is much of our effort and much of 
our desire, whenever there is really anything for us to 
do, we should do it with our might. 

No, away with this merely sentimental conception of 
life as a dream ; this one-sided view of its transitori- 
ness, about which men may preach or sneer. No truly 
spiritual mind — no man who surveys life upon all 
sides, and seeks to make the best of it, ever rested in 
this as his ideal. Paul felt that " the time is short/ 7 
but he had too much to do with life's realities to think 
it all a dream. And John, who looked through these 
material veils, and saw the new Jerusalem coming 
down out of heaven, found in this present state too 
much to love and pray for, to treat it as a mere shad- 
ow. And Luther, whose every word was a battle- 
stroke for the truth ; and Howard, who in the light of 
his own heart kindled by the flame of Christian benev- 
olence, saw the meaning of the saddest and the worst 
conditions — never thought of brooding over the tran- 
sitoriness of human affairs as the largest conception 
of things. Genuine religion does not come out of 
such a view ; nor any broad and worthy action — only 
morbid inefficiency and ascetic isolation. The creed 
of the true saint is to make the best of life, and make 
the most of it. But how are you going to make the 
best of a dream, or the most of a shadow ? In such a 



IDEALS OF LIFE. 



193 



case would it not be better to lie still and sleep, or to 
keep ourselves restrained that we may not be cheated 
by an illusion ? Even if life were a dream, we might 
say — surely it is not a dream to be despised, filled as 
it is with elements of wonder and images of beauty. 
A grand dream-scene truly ! through which the gene- 
rations of men come and go ; a great dream-scene, set 
round with the magnificence of the earth that abideth 
forever, and covered by the illimitable sky ! Even if 
it were all a dream — a pageant transient as the vapor, 
fading as the leaf — still what is there in this dream 
that we should speak of it lightly, and denounce it as 
only vanity ? But out of such a disparaging concep- 
tion comes no spring of moral action, no inspiration 
of noble effort, no true religion. 

No, rather do irreligion and scepticism come out of 
such a conception of human life. Ascetic repudiation 
is closely allied to sensual indulgence. At the foot of 
the pillar on which Simeon Stylites seeks to escape 
from the world, sits the Epicurean with his maxim — 
" Let us eat and drink ; for to-morrow we die." If 
life is thus a mere glittering vision, why be at all in 
earnest ? " Why not make what we can out of it in 
the consciousness of present enjoyment, and in scorn 
of all anxiety ? As in a sinking ship, men grow reck- 
less and drown the conviction of near peril in a delir- 
ium of the senses, so in the feeling that life itself is 
but a painted bubble on the tide of time. Oh ! there 
is no mockery like the mockery of that spirit that looks 
around in the world and believes that all is emptiness. 
Gross sensualism, that plunges a man headlong in the 
9 



191 



SELECT SERMONS. 



mire and leaves him wallowing there with brutish e ves, 
is not to be compared in terribleness with that scoffing 
unbelief which denies all depth and substance in life, 
and looks upon everything as a hollow mask ; which 
laughs alike at the good and the evil, at the delirium 
of passion and the repose of faith, at the scramble of 
ambition and the efforts of self-sacrificing love ; which 
doubts all virtue, and jeers at all enthusiasm, and sets 
in the mean light of ridicule all that is tender and all 
that is venerable. There is a noble kind of satire, a 
proper application of the doctrine — " All is vanity/' 7 
which flashes the light of spiritual truth upon all super- 
ficial living and base aims. This sort, however, while 
it scathes the false, glorifies the true ; and driving men 
from the mere shell of life into its substance, really 
exalts and inspires them. But the sceptical version 
of "All is vanity," makes the shell and the substance 
all one thing ; makes all things shell and falsehood, 
and denies and denounces the whole. There are men 
so metallic and hollow themselves, that all they touch 
rings as if it were metallic and hollow also. In pass- 
ing through their hands, it becomes for the time being 
electrotyped with their own baseness. There are men 
who can sit in a world of mysterious lights and shad- 
ows, of man's heroism and woman's love, of toil and 
prayers, of household sanctities and graves ; a world 
steered by unseen power through seas of starry space ; 
and yet call it all " vanity," — all an empty and vanish- 
ing shadow ! Surely we know with what tone and 
spirit they would ask the question — " What profit hath 
a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun ?" 



IDEALS OF LIFE. 



195 



II. In the next place, there is what may be called 
the worldly view of life. Those who adopt this ideal 
make the present life, the present conditions of their 
life, virtually final. The vital article in their creed is, 
that " the earth abideth forever." So they take the 
other extreme from that which I have just been de- 
scribing. Instead of living as if human life and its 
conditions here were all a dream, they act as if all 
were permanent ; as if nothing was needed or existed 
beyond. The one form of practical unbelief is involved 
with the conception that everything in this life is tran- 
sient and worthless ; the other is sustained by the 
delusion that not only the world but we who are in it 
are enduring. I speak now not of theoretical views, 
but of practical results. And I reiterate my proposi- 
tion, that there are those to whom this world and what 
is in it constitute the only good ; and they live as if this 
were a permanent good. Else, I ask, why are their 
standards of action, and their ideals of life, all of the 
world ? They live as though this were their perpet- 
ual dwelling-place, and they should never know any 
change. The earth abideth forever, and they act as 
though they, like it, were destined to endure, unaffected 
by the touch of time, and retaining their places as ages 
glide away. Their hold upon existence is intense. 
They seize upon it with every faculty of their being and 
drink in all its delight. Shall they not always look 
upon these familiar forms, and be one with the great 
life of nature that streams through all things ? Shall 
they not continue to behold these daily and nightly 
heavens, these alternating seasons, the myriad phases 



196 



SELECT SERMONS. 



of this wonderful and beautiful world ? So do they 
feel, steeped in the delusion of the present, conscious 
of that which is permanent in their own natures, and 
identifying that permanence with things of time and 
sense. So millions have felt before them, clinging 
intensely to the visible world. Ah ! the earth abideth 
forever ; but one generation passeth away, and another 
generation coineth. The earth abideth forever, to tell 
the story of a humanity that perpetually changes, 
and whose tides of life have flowed over it without 
return. It bears upon its bosom the foot-prints of ea- 
ger endeavor, and the sleeping-places of forgotten 
names. Eyes have long since ceased to weep or laugh 
to which its face was once familiar ; and hearts that 
tasted of its delight as from a full wine-cup, have now 
become part of its dust. It has scarcely an acre that 
does not remind us of actions that have long preceded 
our own, and its clustering tomb-stones loom up like 
reefs of the eternal shore, to show us where so many 
human barks have struck and gone down. The earth 
abideth forever ; but it abides as the seed-field and the 
garner of a humanity that perpetually comes and goes. 

And yet, in this predominant idea of worldly per- 
manence, or at least of worldly good, men set up their 
standards of action, and fix their aims. Here are the 
premises from which they start, and the conclusions to 
which they come. What they get or what they lose 
of earthly value is their measure of failure or success. 
In one word, with them this world is final. Or, to 
give a more descriptive title to the aspects of things 
as they are practically affected by them, we may say, 



IDEALS OF LIFE. 



197 



that as to the class of which I have spoken before life 
is a dream, so to these life is a game. The great ob- 
ject is to pluck whatever may be gained from the 
world. To how many is this the highest aim ; the 
purpose to which their talents are devoted, the end 
toward which their efforts move ! 1 By this light you 
can read many a splendid biography ; with this inter- 
pretation you may turn away from many " a chequered 
spectacle of glory and of shame." The great man to 
whom the essayist, however justly or unjustly, has ap- 
plied this sentence, and who sits among the most regal 
of human intellects, has at least given impulse to this 
ideal of life in the scientific influence which he has shed 
abroad, and which appears in the most magnificent 
achievements of our day. For the achievement of sci- 
ence is the achievement of a dominion in and of this 
world. Of course no man can deny the grandeur and 
the benefit of this achievement, but neither can we 
deny the danger involved in its tendencies — the danger 
of absorption in material success, and in the ends for 
which science furnishes the vehicles, xlnd lesser men 
than Lord Bacon, taking this worldly ideal of life, have 
made and do make this life to be merely a game. Only 
a game for the statesman, or politician, who changes 
his professions as a harlequin changes his dress, and 
plays with principles as with dice. Only a game for 
the man who seeks place or power through any rat- 
hole of expediency, or over any impediment of ever- 
lasting right. Only a game to him who scrambles for 
a fortune ; who cares neither for God nor for Caesar, 
but only for the coin that bears the superscription ; 



198 



SELECT SERMONS. 



who casts off scruples and picks up expedients, and 
heeds not whose plank he snatches, whose life-preserver 
he cuts away, so that he keeps self above the water. 
Only a game to. the base profligate, whose counters are 
lies, and whose winnings are the spoils of innocence, 
mingled with despair, and curses, and broken hearts. 

It is very plain that all such results as these are 
closely connected with the worldly ideal of life. In 
some way they are based upon the conception that the 
earth abideth forever, and that there is no standard 
but the world's good and the world's gain. So he who 
strikes a vein of worldly luck is called " a made man 
and he who has lost coin or credit is " broken." His 
fortune is broken, but let me ask — is he really broken ? 
Some portion of the dust of this earth that abideth 
forever has been scattered from his hands, but is he 
nothing more than that dust ? 

0 you whom worldly fortune presses hard, and to 
whom the face of the earth looks gloomy, and life 
itself seems like a horn of plenty turned inside out ! 
what is the standard by which you rate your actual 
failure, your hoped-for success ? Is there nothing for 
man but the earth that abideth forever, and merely the 
good that springs out of the earth ? Is there nothing 
born of this wondrous life itself, that comes and goes 
with every generation — in its toil, its struggle, its 
manifold experiences, is there nothing born of it or 
gathered into it that is better than silver or gold ? 
Are there no joys, no hopes, no tender and immortal 
affections, no substance of manhood itself, that misfor- 
tune cannot break or disappointment kill ? Is there 



IDEALS OF LIFE. 



190 



no inward treasure-house of incorruptible wealth, that 
one failing of worldly success should cry out, "All is 
vanity ? " 

Surely, then, we ought not to be of those to whom 
practically this earth is everything ; who enter upon 
life to " play out the game," and with flushed and cov- 
etous eagerness, setting up the standard of worldly 
gain or loss, inquire — u What profit hath a man of all 
his labor which he taketh under the sun ? " 

III. We have thus far considered the sentimental 
ideal of human life, culminating in the conception of its 
transitoriness, and which virtually makes it but a 
dream; and we have seen also what is the worldly 
ideal in which these present conditions are practically 
treated as final, and which resolves life into a game. 
Let us now, finally, direct our attention to the moral 
ideal of life. And I proceed to observe, that, from 
this point of view, life is regarded neither as transi- 
tory, nor in its present conditions as final, but as real. 
It is not a dream, it is not a game, but it is a problem. 
And it is a problem which this moral ideal alone can 
solve. And from this ground of thought and action 
the two opposite phases of human existence are con- 
fessed and reconciled. Life is transitory ; life is 
enduring. Transitory in its present form ; enduring 
in its essence. In its mortal cycle it is symbolized by 
the cloud and the leaf. It is represented by the gen- 
erations that come and that pass away. In its immor- 
tal substance it is typified by the earth that abideth 
forever. The exclusive consciousness of either of these 
fonts induces evil. The consciousness of the transient 



200 



SELECT SERMONS. 



condition induces ascetic repulsion or Epicurean mock- 
ery. The consciousness of enduring being becomes 
confused with the notion of earthly endurance. The 
moral ideal blends these separate conceptions, and in- 
spires man with the truth that he is working in chang- 
ing conditions for permanent ends. He endures, while 
his form of being alters. Not what he gains of out- 
ward good, but of inward blessedness, is the end of 
his existence, is the solution of life's problem ; is the 
noblest answer to the question — " What profit hath a 
man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun ? " 

The great fact for us to know and to feel is, that 
life is real. As real as our own consciousness of being 
is real. As real as is our experience of good or evil, 
of joy or sorrow. Life, whether in this world or any 
other, is the sum of our attainment, our experience, 
our character. The conditions are secondary. In 
what other world shall we be more surely than we are 
here ? Rapidly as our generations come and go, 
wherever each of us actually is, there is the place of 
required effort, and there is the centre of a moral 
result. And the absolute profit that we may gain here 
under the sun, is that good which will abide with us — 
that good which becomes part of ourselves. 

Our life is indeed transitory, is unsubstantial, if you 
confine your thoughts to its earthly relations and its 
mortal form. But not so when you define it as con- 
sciousness and as experience. However swiftly these 
generations pass along, to each personal atom in that 
flowing stream of being, life is real. It is a conscious 
power precipitated into existence by the hand of God. 



IDEALS OF LIFE. 



201 



and quivering with joy or with pain. Life a mere 
film, a shadow ? only as a cloud that vanishes, a leaf 
that falls? Will you preach that doctrine to the 
children of poverty, to the daughters of woe ? Unroof 
some of the dwellings in this great city that are hud- 
dled together under the vail of darkness ! Look into 
the faces that cluster there ! Read the expressions 
of a sorrowful consciousness that sends up its surges 
to lip and eye ! Read the look of pain, and hunger, 
and despair ! See the blank hopelessness of discon- 
tented labor — the misery of women who know not 
where to turn, in the dreadful alternative of death or 
ruin ! See the wild joy with which the mother, snatch- 
ing " the boneless gums " of her child from her famine- 
withered breast, detects the white seal of death on 
that child's face, with one cold touch dismissing it 
from suffering ! Tell those who feel life in misery 
creeping to their marrow, in want appealing through 
every faculty of their nature, in misfortune striking 
them with heavy hands ; who feel nature crushing 
them witli its iron wheels ; or who know life most 
intensely in tiie accusations of conscience, and by the 
canker of" guilt, b} r their own hearts, heavy with 
infamy, and at every beat throbbing against the burn- 
ing bars of shame ; — tell such as these that life is 
transitory and unsubstantial, and they may thank you 
for the assurance that it is short, but they will tell you 
that they know it is real. 

Life is not a mere dream, that we may despise it, or 
let it fruitlessly glide away. It may furnish us with 
illusions. We may cherish conceptions in it that are 
9* 



202 



SELECT SERMONS. 



never realized. The boy's ideal world may not be the 
actual world, and yet by that ideal he is urged to go 
forward into the world. The philanthropist's hope 
may not appear in the coming future, yet the inspira- 
tion of that hope may make him a hero, and perhaps 
a martyr. There may be visions along our way, vis- 
ions on the path of duty, visions in the scope of faith ; 
and by them we may often be deluded — by them, too, we 
may often be helped and improved. But visions do 
not constitute the sum and substance of life, and such 
as they are they indicate the greatness, not the little- 
ness of life. They prove that life itself is not a dream, 
but that life is real. For who are we that dream, and 
for what end are these dreams given ? 

Life is not a game. It is not a field merely for 
selfish uses, limited by worldly ends, as though it were 
only of this earth that abideth forever. It is an arena 
for noble effort, it is a school for our immortal facul- 
ties ; it is a discipline conducting to our highest good. 
It is an opportunity for us not merely to get, but to 
attain — not simply to have, but to be. Its standard of 
failure or success is not outward fortune, but inward 
possession. 

Life is a problem. Not merely a premiss from which 
we start, but a goal towards which we proceed. Not 
a selfish standard of having and getting, but a revela- 
tion requiring of us a posture of reception. What is 
yet to be known, what is yet to be done, is the con- 
sideration involved with this moral ideal. It inspires 
us to seek an end in life beyond the mere forms of life ; 
to detect a significance in every fact of our being ; 



IDEALS OF LIFE. 



203 



while with the transient woof and the enduring warp 
of our existence we weave a permanent spiritual re- 
sult. That one generation passcth away, and another 
generation cometh, is a reminder for our diligence. 
That there is something within us that endures, an- 
swering to the conception of the earth abiding for- 
ever, is a ground for our patience and our trust. 

Permit me, then, to put this plain, direct question — 
What do you think of life ? Surely, you have some 
thought concerning it. Surely, you arc not living 
without some conception of icliy you live, and what the 
end is to be. Indeed, we cannot truly live until some 
conception of life's purpose, some ideal of life itself, 
rises in our minds and takes possession of our hearts. 
We are all laboring to some end ; even those who are 
most careless and frivolous are laboring — laboring, it 
may be, more heavily than the rest. And now here 
rises the problem — " What profit hath a man of all his 
labor which he taketh under the sun?" Here, too, ap- 
pear the conditions of the problem. On the one hand, 
a transient residence in this mortal state ; a life quick 
vanishing like the mists of the morning, like the leaves 
that are falling in yellow showers through the sunshine 
and shadow of these autumn days. On the other 
hand, here is the earth that abideth forever. 

In this state of things what shall we assume ? That 
our entire being is transient ? — is like the cloud that 
appear eth for a little while, and then vanisheth away ? 
Or, that all our being is limited to this earth, and 
therefore we practically fall into the delusion that thus 
we are to abide forever ? 



204 



SELECT SERMONS. 



It is evident that adopting either of these grounds 
of thought exclusively, we shall give a different inter- 
pretation to the question, " What profit hath a man of 
all his labor which he taketh under the sun ?" from that 
which is afforded by a perception of the elements of 
truth contained in both these extremes. What profit, 
indeed, if man is only an ephemeral creature, flutter- 
ing into nothingness, or merely an animal, all whose 
relations and whose scope of being are fixed in this 
present state ! 

But such a solution of the life-problem does not 
answer to our consciousness, which, with the knowl- 
edge of that which is transient in our earthly con- 
ditions, blends the assurance of something that is per- 
manent. No, we are compelled, by our own experience, 
by the revelations of our own nature, to fall back upon 
the moral ideal of life — the conception that through 
transient conditions we work for permanent ends, and 
that that only is " profit" which, adding to the sub- 
stance of our immortal nature, becomes in us spiritual 
power and blessedness, and similitude to God. 

Brethren, need I assure you that the theme of this 
discourse is of the deepest importance ? that it is in- 
volved with your closest interests ? The facts in the 
case are clear and palpable. We live. We act. Life, 
to each of us, is something. We know how many of 
its forms and relations are transient — but also we are 
made aware of something within ourselves, and of our- 
selves that abides forever. If the writer of the Book 
of Ecclesiastes does not corroborate this intimation of 
our higher nature, Christ demonstrates it for us. He 



IDEALS OF LIFE. 



205 



demonstrates it not only by his own resurrection, but 
by the Spirit of Eternal Life which he imparts to us. 
No man can partake of that spirit — no man can look 
upon life in any degree as Jesus looked upon it, and not 
feel sure that it is real. With no sentimental depreci- 
ation, with no ascetic contempt, did He regard the 
world which He marked with the foot-prints of His 
labor, the tears and blood of His self-sacrificing love. 
For no mere earthly ends, no limitation of the senses? 
did He reveal the sanctions of our conduct and the 
worth of our souls. And the noblest use of life starts 
from His point of view. What a grandeur it imparts 
to existence ! How base it makes our selfish scram- 
bling and our frivolous aims ! What significance it 
lends to the trial and difficulty of our mortal lot ! 

How, then, does our actual life correspond with this 
moral ideal — with Christ's ideal ! Do we live as those 
whose most treasured results are frail and ebbing 
away — or as those whose real life is immortal? Ex- 
amine your lives, consider your work — and say, What 
is the practical answer which you give to this great 
problem — " What profit hath a man of all his labor 
which he taketh under the sun ?" 



XIII. 



THE PRINCIPLE OP THE DIVINE KING- 
DOM. 

And the Scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: 
for there is one God; and there is none other but he : and to love him 
with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the 
soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is 
more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus 
saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from 
the Kingdom of God. Mark xii. 32-34. 

The grandest utterance of modern science is the 
announcement, that the stud) 7 of nature is the perusal 
of the Creator's thoughts. That our systems and clas- 
sifications are not convenient contrivances of our own 
ingenuity, but the way-marks of Infinite intelligence, 
by which the human mind instinctively apprehends and 
traces out the plan of the Divine. Natural philosophy, 
therefore, appears not as a proud structure of man's 
invention, but as a method of reverent study and faith- 
ful interpretation. And thus does science, in its bold- 
est and most independent investigations, attain to the 
long-felt realities of faith, and bear voluntary witness 
to the great truths of religion. 

And it will be observed that this testimony is two- 
fold — having reference to God, and having reference 

[206] 



THE PRINCIPLE OF THE DIVINE KINGDOM. 207 

to man. These discoveries in the natural world about 
us, make known at once the Divine source of being, 
and the dignity of that humanity by which this source 
of being is recognized and approached. The conclu- 
sion seems irresistible. There is no evidence that 
mere forms of matter, or currents of physical force, do 
themselves think. But, in the relations of matter — in 
the adjustments by which bone is linked to bone, and 
sinew to sinew, and the eye fitted to the light, and the 
light suited to the eye, and part bears reference to part, 
and all parts are knit together in one organic whole — 
in all these there is evidence that there has been 
thought somewhere ; there is an intelligent connection 
compelling us to look for an intelligent Creator and 
Disposer of these relations. The manifestations of 
thought arranging these things, that do not them- 
selves think, is proof of a " thinking God." 

On the other hand, the being himself who apprehends 
this thought — to whom, by virtue of certain inherent 
faculties, the evidence of thought appears in the things 
of the natural world around him — the scholar and in- 
terpreter of these preestablished relations — must be in 
alliance with that Infinite Intelligence. He appre- 
hends the manifestations of thought in things about 
him by a kindred quality in his own nature. There- 
fore the testimony of science is to the truth of God, 
and of man made in the image of God. Its effect is 
to deliver us from the slough of materialism ; from all 
atheistic conceptions of the origin of things ; from all 
disheartening and degrading views of human nature ; 
all views that involve the annihilation of the human 



208 



SELECT SERMONS. 



soul, or that identify man with the brute. On the solid 
substructure of science, apprehending this element of 
thought in the universe, rises the fabric of natural re- 
ligion glorious and impregnable. But in the relations 
of things in the world around him, man finds some- 
thing more than pure intelligence. He discovers a 
pervading benificence. Not only is one part linked to 
another in a wondrous chain of order, but these are 
so fitted as to secure the general iveU-being of each and 
of all. Whatever facts may intrude here or there, 
they are not sufficient to disturb the general impression, 
or to eclipse the prevailing evidences of Supreme good- 
will. Our conviction of Divine goodness in things is 
as spontaneous and as instinctive as our conviction of 
Divine intelligence in tilings. We cannot separate 
the perception of the one from that of the other. 
Wherever we gaze, wherever we explore, we behold 
the features of creative skill steeped in the smile of 
creative love. An adjusting intelligence is not more 
evident in the structure of the little wood-bird, than it 
is evident that his humble nest and simple wants are 
comprehended in a kind and universal care. And the 
the truth brought thus before our eyes in these small 
and familiar ways, is the central fact that runs through 
all things. Beyond that midnight belt of splendor; 
even through those tracts of dim magnificence where 
man longs yet trembles to proceed, the conviction 
never forsakes us that we are within the enclosure not 
Dnly of a plan, but of a beneficent plan, and that intel- 
lectual order is at the same time the expression of 
divine goodness. 



THE PRINai'Lb; OF THE DIVINE KINGDOM. 2(J ! J 



And if we enlarge the field of observation, we only 
increase the testimony. Even within the sphere of 
human relations, where we encounter the largest 
amount of conflicting facts, the two-fold witness is 
plainly manifest, and wherever we find intelligent pre- 
arrangernent, we find benevolent purpose. What a 
proof of the Divine tenderness is there in the human 
heart itself, which is the organ and receptacle of so 
many sympathies. When we consider how exquisite 
are those conditions by which it is even made capable 
of so much suffering — the capabilities of a child's 
heart, of a mother's heart — what must be the nature of 
Him who fashioned its depths and strung its chords ? 

Not only parallel, then, with the manifestations of 
thought in the world around us, but inextricably 
blended with these, we find the expression of an all- 
pervading goodness. The specific difference, however, 
between these two elements, appears in the fact that 
the intellectual order indicates only a method, or pro- 
cess, but the prevailing beneficence declares a final 
cause, or purpose. The one bears the character of an 
agent, the other has the greatness and importance of 
an end. The highest truth which the universe makes 
known to us is the truth that not only is the Creator 
intelligent, but that He is good. That goodness, there- 
fore, is the highest conceivable excellence. 

But I observe, still further, that if man apprehends 
the Divine intelligence in the things around him by 
a kindred intelligence in his own nature, so does 
he apprehend the Divine beneficence by a kindred 
quality. There must be some spark of sympathy in 



210 



SELECT SERMONS. 



the human soul that responds to the excellence of God 
Himself. Man recognizing the love of God is capable 
of assimilating and exercising that love. And as this 
love is the highest fact of being, it follows that man 
attains the true end of his existence in proportion as 
this love becomes the law and spirit of his life. And 
while, as we have seen, the structure of natural 
religion rests upon the Divine intelligence in nature, 
apprehended by a kindred intelligence in man, upon 
this still more fundamental basis of the Divine love, 
and the capability of man for apprehending and com- 
muning with that love, rests the fabric of Christianity. 
For Christianity is a more comprehensive and distinct 
expression of this great fact, that gleams out from 
every feature of nature and of human experience. 
In Jesus Christ the Divine goodness is concentrated 
and personified ; and His lips announced that which 
His life made known — that the supreme law of being is 
the law of love, and therefore that the fulfilment of that 
law is the loftiest attainment set before the heart and 
soul of man. And thus, resting upon this great truth, 
Christianity stands upon a foundation as firm and as 
demonstrable as the propositions of science — as the 
facts of nature itself. 

And thus we see how it is true, as Jesus said, and as 
the Scribe in the words of the text confessed, that the 
first of all the commandments is love. Thus, too, we 
see how the fulfilment of this commandment is more 
than whole burnt offerings and sacrifices ; and how 
he who even clearly apprehends this truth is " not far 
from the kingdom of God." 



THE PRINCIPLE OF THE DIVINE KINGDOM. 211 

And having considered the ground of the truth set 
forth in this passage, let us proceed to notice a few 
points which grow out of it. Let us meditate upon 
this law of love as the principle of the Divine Kingdom 
and more than " burnt offerings and sacrifices," by 
regarding it, 

I. As the consummation of being. 
II. As the motive of action. 

III. When it becomes the experimental element of 
the heart and the life. 

I. " To love Him with all the heart, and with all the 
understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the 
strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is more 
than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." This is 
the principle of the Divine kingdom : for Christ saw 
that the scribe who confessed this " answered dis- 
creetly," and declared that he was " not far from the 
kingdom of God." And we discern the ground of this 
supremacy, I observe in the first place, in the fact 
that the attainment and exercise of this Divine element 
of love is the consummate result of man's being. This 
has been shown in the preceding remarks. Man 
attains the perfection of his nature in proportion as he 
assimilates to the Divine nature ; in proportion, there- 
fore, as he becomes possessed and regenerated by love, 
which is the essence of the Divine nature — for " God 
is love." Therefore the possession and exercise of 
this quality as the law of the heart and the under- 
standing — the cherishing of it with all the soul, and 



212 



SELECT SERMON'S. 



all the strength — is more than whole burnt offerings 
and sacrifices — is more than any external act or per- 
formance which these may represent. For, in the first 
place, these burnt offerings and sacrifices, even at the 
best, are but steps towards the highest life. 

Let us not deny the efficacy of forms and ceremonies, 
or of certain moral acts which may be nothing more 
than forms and ceremonies — let us not deny the effi- 
cacy of these as modes of help and discipline in the pro- 
gress of the Divine life. We should measure upward 
as well as downward ; estimating not only from the 
point of ideal attainment, but from the point of actual 
effort. The burnt offerings and sacrifices may not indi- 
cate the highest result in spiritual life and knowledge, 
but they may indicate a great advance from ignorance 
and superstition, and from the bondage of sensuality 
and sin. Thus the eeremonials of the Old Testament 
may seem gross and imperfect as compared with the 
freedom and spirituality of the New ; but how does 
the system to which they belonged, and which they 
maintained, compare with other modes of religious 
faith and worship among the nations by which the 
ancient Jews were surrounded ? There stands this 
undeniable fact, that by this system of ritual-education 
— by these " burnt offerings and sacrifices" — an entire 
people were brought into relations with the Infinite 
One, far transcending the vague notions and supersti- 
tious practices of their contemporaries. Through 
these symbols and shadows they caught -glimpses of 
the sublime truth which shines out in the Revelation 
of the Gospel, and in the face of Jesus Christ. They 



THE PRINCIPLE OF THE DIVINE KINGDOM. 213 



arrived at the conception of One Supreme and Holy 
God. So far, therefore, the burnt offerings and sacri- 
fices were steps towards the truth. 

And we should allow this interpretation in consider- 
ing any expression of religious reverence or faith. 
In the rudest forms which for this purpose men use, 
we should estimate not only from our point of view, 
but from theirs. The symbol may appear to us very 
gross ; but what does it signify to him who employs 
it? For us that expression of faith and worship 
would be a great step backward ; but for him it may 
be a great step forward, out of absolute recklessness 
and practical atheism. It may point far off, but still 
it does point towards that God whose true worship is 
in love, and whose law of love is the principle of the 
Divine kingdom. I can have no sympathy with any 
irreverent handling even of men's religious errors, if 
they are religious errors, and express for them some- 
thing supreme and holy. I respect the spiritual atti- 
tude of the poor girl who counts her beads, summing 
up in that act her best ideas of God and duty ; string- 
ing on that single thread all the consecrated hours of 
her life, running away back among the memories of 
childhood, and the shadows of cathedral walls in 
father-land. I respect even the thrill of awe that stirs 
the darkened soul of the African bowing before his 
fetish, and recognize in it a mystic touch from out the 
Infinite leading him on, though it be a very little way, 
from this wilderness of material, animal life — a very 
little way on in the path whereby good men and true 
men have attained to enlightened vision and positive 



214 



SELECT SERMONS. 



communion with the One Living God. I have some re- 
spect for these expressions of a sense of something 
higher and better, deeply mixed as they are with 
error. But I have no respect for the man who can 
only laugh at them, even though he be philosopher, 
Christian and Protestant. And I am inclined to ask 
whether, with all his consciousness of spiritual views 
and intellectual superiority, there is so much of a 
Divine tendency — so much that runs in the way towards 
Divine communion — as in these over-shadowed souls 
whom God accepts for what they mean, rather than 
for what they do t 

It is something for men in this world to hold even 
by the fringes of Divine reality. And, although they 
must touch some palpable and formal thing, it is good 
if, when they do touch that, some key-note to faith and 
reverence responds in their souls. 

It is better — is it not ? — even for the reckless man 
pitched upon the waves of worldly fortune — gross and 
often profane, it may be — in fact assimilated to the con- 
ditions among which he lives ; it is better — is it not? 
— that he holds even by some shred of a religious sanc- 
tion, some fragment of a liturgy, some scrap of 
devotion, some little tarnished clue of reverential 
practice which accompanies him through the labyrinth 
of his worldly life from the baptismal font and the 
village church — so that even in strange scenes he mur- 
murs perhaps the Lord's Prayer, or on the rocking sea, 
or by the camp-fire of the battle-field, says, " Now I 
lay me down to sleep" — surely even these hasty and 
inconsistent steps forward are better than utter nega- 



THE PRINCIPLE OF THE DIVINE KINGDOM. 215 



tion and moral stupor. For they are steps forward ; 
or, rather they are steps upward from the dead ground 
of materialism and no-faith ; even though they are few 
and broken, like steps in a ruin, ending in nothing, yet 
pointing up — making all the more significant that ruin 
itself, and the awful space towards which they point. 

Once more I say, then, let us not deny the efficacy 
of the burnt offerings and sacrifices, if they actually 
are expressions of sincere reverence and faith. Let us 
confess that they may mean something even for the 
most benighted ; nay, how they may mean a great deal 
even for men of lofty spiritual sentiment, though we 
ourselves may sympathize more with those who wor- 
ship in the sublimity of a filial trust, and aspire to the 
communion of the naked soul. 

But with this distinct recognition of the value that 
may exist in ceremonials, or in those formal acts of 
morality which are also ceremonials ; we are pre- 
pared all the more clearly to see that, as mere cere- 
monies, mere acts of constraint and routine, there is 
no genuine religious life in them, and they are far from 
constituting the great end of religious attainment. It 
is indeed most lamentable when a man's ideal of 
spiritual life is completed in ceremony, and he stops 
satisfied with merely formal acts of religion. What a 
meagre conception is this of the privileges of the soul 
in the exercise of the spirit of love, and in communion 
with God ! How sad to see those faculties which might 
live and grow in all the freedom and joy and largeness 
of the religious life ; inspired, so to speak, by the very 
element and motive of the Divine nature ; mummified 



216 



SELECT SERMONS. 



in traditional bondage, and dwarfed and wilted in a 
little rcund of ceremonies. The burnt-offerings and 
sacrifices are only steps towards -the end, or else they 
are only symbols of an inward "and spiritual service. 
All those ceremonials of the Old Testament grew dim 
and useless before the glory of that self-sacrificing love 
that hung upon the cross. And when man assimilates 
that love to himself, the outward performance is second- 
ary to the inward condition — it is only the expression 
of that, condition. That interior love — that spiritual 
oneness with the Divine love — will manifest itself in 
outward acts as surely as any ordinary affection will 
manifest itself. It cannot help manifesting itself. But 
the end is attained in that inward spirit. The con- 
summate result of our nature is not in doing, but in 
being — being like God, who " is love." And, there- 
fore, to love Him with all the heart, and with all the 
understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the 
strength, is more than whole burnt-offerings and sac- 
rifices. 

II. I observe, in the next place, that the supremacy 
of love, as the principle of the Divine kingdom, is appar- 
ent in its working as a motive of action. It is thus 
the vital force of all persistent and noble doing. In- 
deed it is the very life of the best things, devoid of 
which they are only dead bodies. What is religion 
without love, but a draped and chilling form, with a 
sanctimonious look and with phylacteries about its 
brow ? What is the intellectual act of faith — the mere 
apprehension of Grod and of spiritual realities by the 



THE PRINCIPLE OF THE DIVINE KINGDOM. 217 

faculties of the mind — what is this more than a splen- 
did achievement of human thought, in which man the 
thinker sits with all his implements of knowledge in 
his hands, and with the radiant coronet of science on 
his head, as unmoved by the real significance of these 
Divine glories as one of those kings that sit in their 
robes of state, dead as the dead marble around them? 
What is prayer without love, but the mockery of lofty 
compliment, or the awe and agony of servile fear ? 

Love is the very life of the best things, and without 
it, I repeat, they are mere bodies, dead and empty. Is 
not that a wonderful passage, where the apostle makes 
even those acts which we sometimes confound with this 
great spiritual principle — makes acts of charity them- 
selves to appear as hollow and worthless without the 
animating spirit of love ? The act of alms-giving, in 
which we stand far off from our suffering brother, and 
touch him only with a metallic rim of silver or of gold, 
with measured steps pacing the ramparts of poverty, 
and only watching God's poor ! There is no true 
charity that has not in it the pulse of sympathy, and 
that does not thrill with the implicated life-blood of 
our common humanity. We must rejoice with those 
that rejoice, we must mourn with those that mourn. 
We must, in some sort, enter into the feeling of their 
agony, and even of their very shame. The under- 
current of our humanity must, at some point, blend 
with the under-currents of this great surging sea of 
population, crested with bleached faces of famine, and 
heaving to the surface its waifs of ghastliness and de- 
spair. Mothers in comfort! feel like mothers in heart- 
10 



218 



SELECT SERMONS. 



breaking anguish gazing upon their starved and dying 
babes. Men in affluence ! enter with deep respect and 
thoughtfulness into that misery which is not clamorous, 
which shows no abject look, but which being silent is 
all the more keen and fatal, covered by the respectable 
habit of happier years, and concealed by a shield of in- 
stinctive pride which is that sort of noble heraldry that: 
one surrenders last on the disastrous battle-field of 
life. Hosts of Christian help ! move with swift eager- 
ness, as if for your own lives, to the succor of those 
shattered ranks that are borne down by the charge of 
calamity and the spear-points of winter cold. Hearts 
of virtue! by the very blessedness of your own con- 
sciousness, rate the fearful conflict, pity the dreadful 
fall of those who walk in guilty desolation challenged 
by the holy stars. Only theirs are deeds of living 
charity who love their neighbors as themselves, and 
in that potent sympathy there is a blessing far beyond 
the value of any formal gift. 

No doubt, apart from the spirit of love as a principle 
of action, there may be a certain virtue of submission, 
or obedience : as, for instance, the child may perform a 
duty simply because it is a parental command, uncon- 
scious of any intrinsic excellence in the deed, and un- 
moved by any love for the essence of the thing. There 
are rules of action which we must obey, there are 
moral obligations which we must discharge, whether 
we do it from the motive of love or not. There are 
legal requirements and positive precepts that must have 
our allegiance, though they may not gain our affections 
or even enlist our will. There are rules and laws in the 



THE PRINCIPLE OF THE DIVINE KINGDOM. 219 



family, in the school, in the State, and the organic in- 
tegrity of these institutions may be preserved by bare 
obedience. But there is no true blessedness in the 
family, there is no glorious attainment in the school, 
there is no absolute safety in the State, where love is 
not the spring of all obedience. Men do well, men do 
nobly, only that which they do lovingly. It matters 
not that they ought to love it. I repeat, the condition 
of noble performance is in the fact that they do love 
it. Men may formally repent of sin ; but they are not 
delivered from sin so long as they love it — they are de- 
livered from it only when they love goodness, when 
they love the highest goodness set forth in the life and 
personality of Jesus Christ more than all the forms, 
more than the very essence of evil. Oh ! this negative 
renunciation, this vital restriction, is not enough — is 
mere barrenness and emptiness. No true life for the 
soul grows in the soil of negation. Our hearts must 
be kindled and vivified with a "positive element — we 
must be attracted, drawn, nailed as it were to the very 
cross of Christ, in sympathy with the spirit there dis- 
played, in assimilation of it to our own inward and 
truest life. . Love the Lord thy God with all the heart, 
with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with 
all the strength, and thy neighbor as thyself — this is 
deliverance from all sin ; it is deliverance from selfish- 
ness which is the root of sin. 

And still further observe, that there is an inex- 
haustible joy in love, which springs up even in the 
performance of .the most severe duties, and of the most 
painful work. How often does selfishness end in sor- 



220 



SELECT SERMONS. 



row, and the utmost success become mockery ! I was 
much struck with a fact which came under my notice 
■some time since, and I presume it fell under the notice 
of many of you. It was an account of a man of almost 
incalculable riches, who, in order to humor his mania, 
I believe, had been placed in the alms-house, and who 
died there, tormented and overwhelmed by the notion 
that he should come to absolute want ; and instances, 
to a greater or less degree, like this, I presume, are not 
rare. Now, I ask you, is it conceivable that a loving 
spirit, living and laboring for others, could thus fall 
into utter despair ? Could it ever fear coming to 
want, or at least could it really suffer and perish under 
any such morbid solicitude ? Indeed, it may be doubt- 
ed whether a large, loving, working nature is likely to 
be affected by insanity, which would seem to have its 
root, in many instances, in a selfish introspection. 

But while there is no virtue in the act that is per- 
formed without love, let us recognize the joy that con- 
sists, even with the sternest duty performed in this 
spirit. It blends with the most painful sacrifice that 
a mother makes ; it swells in the breast of the suffer- 
ing patriot, and softens the pangs of the martyr. Paul, 
in all his toils and trials, cries out, " Rejoice evermore !" 
and Christ Himself, though " a man of sorrows and ac- 
quainted with grief," was " anointed with the oil of 
gladness above his fellows," and, " for the joy that was 
set before Him, endured the cross and despised the 
shame." Indeed, we may say that although the Saviour 
was acquainted with grief — a serene blessedness was 
the inmate of His deepest life ; for on the very thresh- 



THE PRINCIPLE OF THE DIVINE KINGDOM. 221 



old of His great agony, and under the shadow of His 
cross, He savs to His disciples, " My peace I give unto 

you." 

The burnt offering and sacrifices — all methods of 
effort and performance — without the spirit of love, are 
empty ; with that they possess an illimitable capacity 
and an inexhaustible blessedness ; and therefore, as 
the great motive of action, love is the principle of the 
divine kingdom. 

III. Finally, let me say that this element of love 
manifests its supremacy when it becomes an experimen- 
tal element of the heart and the life. I need not dwell 
upon the obvious point in this proposition — the fact 
that the excellence of this divine principle must be a 
matter of spiritual consciousness, and not merely of in- 
telligent recognition. 

But there is something very significant in the 
Saviour's words, in the latter part of the text, " Thou 
art not far from the kingdom of God." The Scribe 
who entertained such an intelligent perception of the 
true life of the soul, and confessed it as the principle of 
the divine kingdom, stood in the very vestibule of that 
kingdom itself. We know not whether he proceeded 
and truly entered in. But what I wisli particularly 
to say now is, that these are words of great encourage- 
ment, and yet they are also words of warning. 

For, in closing this discourse, I urge upon you the 
fact, that by mere confession of the supremacy of this 
law of love, without experience of it, not only may a 
man be no better, but he may be worse. For the por- 



222 



SELECT SERMONS. 



tal of knowledge is not the arena of life. And there 
is something very perilous in this faith of the vestibule; 
more perilous than in a position of greater positive 
error. In religious faith, in religious feeling, some- 
times there occurs a crisis, when one has abandoned 
the old ground, but has not positively taken his posi- 
tion upon the new. When his intellect is convinced, 
but his heart is not carried over. When he has sur- 
rendered the old restraints, the superstitions and false 
conceits, but has not yielded to the sovereignty of the 
divine law of love. He is not far from the kingdom 
of God, and yet may I not say that it would be better 
for him if he were further off ? 

At least, it surely is a position of great peril, to give 
up the old ideas, to cut away these external and formal 
props, and yet not be subjected to the control of this 
inner law. Then there is nothing but self-will and 
recklessness of thought that have been engendered in 
the dissolution of the old reverential ties. Then 
liberty proves worse than bondage, because liberty has 
become licentiousness, and free thought worse than im- 
plicit credence, because free thought does not check 
practical atheism. Permit me to illustrate a religious 
truth by a public and political instance. It appears 
to me that, as a people, we are passing through a great 
crisis, and the sharp edge of the crisis is the fact that 
we have rejected the old, but have not surrendered 
with whole-hearted loyalty to the new. 

Democracy — I use the term in its best sense, in its 
legitimate sense — Democracy, I may say, is Christi- 
anity in civilization — the social development of the 



THE PRINCIPLE OF THE DIVINE KINGDOM. 223 



law of love. Now, in the name of Democracy, we have 
rejected the old notions — in theory, we have wel- 
comed the new ideas. In theory, there is hardly a 
feudal rag left among us. We have clothed ourselves 
with results wrought out by the patient toil and sacri- 
fice of others — we have entered into a heritage be- 
queathed us by generations of thinkers and sufferers 
who have gone before. 

But renouncing reverence for feudalism, for crowns 
and crosiers, for all the old symbols of loyalty — what 
do Ave reverence in their stead ? Do we reverence the 
supreme law of right in the soul ? We are vocife- 
rous in praise of freedom. Is this freedom general, or 
individual and exclusive? We cry out, "Human 
brotherhood and equality." Are these only for our- 
selves as a race — only for classes ? Is it true that we 
are not looking for the divine birth right of man within, 
in the moulding of the heart and the capacities of the 
soul, but only in the color of the face and the shape of 
the skull ; and virtually proclaiming that God has 
written the charter of personal freedon on white vel- 
lum, not on black ? 

Now these very elements of democratic liberty are 
the elements of despotism, when they are monopolized 
and turned in for the behoof of a single man ; and it is 
possible that they may prove to be nothing more than 
elements of despotism, multiplied by thousands, so long 
as they are exclusive, selfish, and greedy elements. If 
we quit the old heavy barge and take a steamboat, it 
will be better or worse as we use it. It will carry us 
quicker into port, but it will carry us quicker to de- 



224 



SELECT SERMONS. 



struction. It will carry us more rapidly through the 
Highlands of the Hudson, if we are inclined to go 
that way ; it will carry us more rapidly over the 
Falls of Niagara, if we are inclined to go that way. 
And I say that, with these grand ideas, with these 
potent elements, we as a people are just in that critical 
state whence we shall emerge into the noblest social 
form the world has ever yet seen, or give birth to the 
most hideous despotism it has ever borne upon it sur- 
face. 

And just like this, my brethren, is the critical con- 
dition, is the great peril of the individual, when he 
has removed the old sanctions of obedience, the bonds 
of ancient terror, but still only confesses the new and 
better conception. The principle of the Divine king- 
dom has not become the positive element of his inward 
life. Then I say, such a man is in a desolate and 
dangerous condition. The ancient fabric is torn 
down ; the new temple is not erected. He stands out 
shivering in the bleak and barren space between the 
two. Then he will naturally feel a reaction ; having 
experienced this result of tearing away the old props, 
he will look around now for some system which offers 
the most props ; and at this point the Roman Catholic 
Church wins many of its converts. Or else the merely 
speculative intellect, that does not carry the heart 
with it, desperately drifts away into the regions of 
dreary negation. 

" Thou art not far from the kingdom of Cod ! 79 
" Not far ! " These may be very inspiring words. 
Not far, 0 storm-driven mariner ! Behind yon rocky 



THE PRINCIPLE OF THE DIVINE KINGDOM. 225 



headland looming through clouds and embossed with 
foam, are the village church, the familiar school-house, 
the dear old home. Not far, 0 runner in the dusty 
race ! the heart grows faint, and the eye-sight swims, 
but the goal is just ahead. 

But, oh, how mournful, also, are these words " not 
far !" when the very truth they tell us intensifies the 
sadness of disappointment, the shame of failure and 
defeat. They who perished some time since in our 
vicinity, by the burning boat, were close to the shore. 
The poor dying girl, longing for home, and at every 
pause in her journey crying, " Are we almost there ? ,1? 
when she drew her last breath was " almost there." 
So in this spiritual movement and life-struggle. It 
seems to me the very keenest point of failure, the very 
depth of moral disaster, is, when we are " not far. 7 ' 

Brethren, let our faith be something more than that 
of the vestibule. Let us not stand there merely ac- 
knowledging and admiring the principle of the Divine 
kingdom. Let us enter. There is a law of love, 
whose glorious result is perfect liberty and perfect 
obedience. There is a life which is the highest attain- 
ment of our being. It is the life of perpetual com- 
munion, through Christ, with the Father, in the enjoy- 
ment of which, now and forever more, we are in and 
of the Kingdom of God. 
10* 



XIY. 



THE PARABLES OF PROVIDENCE. 

And he said unto them, Know ye not this parable ? and how then 
will ye know all parables Mark iv, 13. 

The particular parable referred to here is the 
parable of the soicer, of which the disciples had asked 
an explanation. But in complying with their request 
the Saviour took occasion to speak of parables in 
general — to indicate their purpose and significance. 
This form of teaching threw a symbolical veil over 
certain truths which a careless mind would not com- 
prehend, or which a prejudiced mind would oppose. 
But to the willing and the teachable, parables only 
made these truths more vivid, and invited to pro- 
founder discoveries. Thus, the practical effect of the 
parables was not merely to instruct those who listened 
to the teachings of Jesus, but to draw out their qual- 
ities of mind and heart. Those who would not see, 
did not see — or, hearing, did not hear — what Christ 
really uttered ; while those whose dispositions were 
right, looking attentively at the surface of the narra- 
tive, and desiring to be taught, saw more and more of 

(226) 



THE PARABLES OF PROVIDENCE. 



227 



the essential facts which were enveloped In it. To 
those who had, more was given ; they were let -into 
the mystery of the kingdom of God ; while to those 
whose dispositions kept them upon the outside, these 
things were only parables. 

These parables were the multiform illustrations of a 
single and simple system of Divine truth — one great 
class of spiritual facts — composing " the kingdom of 
heaven." When, therefore, by the means of any parable, 
this central truth was reached by the hearers of Jesus, it 
is evident that in this knowledge they possessed a key 
to the essential meaning of all the parables ; and so 
far as they were concerned, this method of instruction 
had produced its desired result. In the right inter- 
pretation of this parable of the sower, they possessed 
a clue to all that class of teachings. On the other 
hand, if they could not comprehend the meaning of so 
plain a symbolism, they would not understand any 
other. " Know ye not this parable ? and how then 
will ye know all parables ?" 

Having thus considered the original bearing of the 
question in the text, let us now proceed to draw from 
it its application to ourselves. " Know ye not this 
parable ? and how then will ye know all parables ?" 
We do know this particular parable ; for Christ him- 
self lias given us its meaning ; and from this explan- 
ation we may gather the spiritual significance of the 
other parables in the New Testament. A school-boy 
knows now more about nature than Copernicus or 
Newton did — without, by any means, being the equal 
of Copernicus or Newton. For the same reason, pos- 



228 



SELECT SERMONS. 



sessing the aggregate teachings of Jesus and His dis- 
ciples, and beholding them in the clear light of follow- 
ing events, we understand the sayings of our Saviour 
better than those primitive hearers did. But the text 
furnishes us with some special suggestions, to which, 
in the present discourse, I invite your attention. I 
observe, then, in the first place, that we need a leading 
principle of interpretation — we need a master-key — 
not only in studying the parables of the New Testa- 
ment, but in all life. I will intensify this proposition. 
I maintain that if any man gets a correct view of one 
fact of life, he has a clue to the entire system of things 
— I mean he has a clue so far as lie is practically con- 
cerned — in his present condition. 

Does not this analogy hold good in almost every 
instance ? There is the department of science. The 
great marvel in that pursuit is not any special result 
arrived at, but the very method of the pursuit itself. 
It is in the assurance with which the naturalist from 
a single fact constructs an entire organism, or a com- 
plete series. Give him the fragment of a skeleton — 
give him some little fossil bone, dug from the strata 
of the ancient earth — and he builds up the colossal 
hulk of the mammoth, or the megatherium. Let New- 
ton ponder the fall of an apple, and he discerns the 
law by which a rain-drop descends to the ocean, and a 
planet swims round the sun. Thus rises the ladder of 
induction from the earth to the skies ; and with one 
true principle the philosopher unlocks the wards of 
the universe. 

The same thins: is evident in the science of mind. 



THE PARABLES OF PROVIDENCE. 229 

It is none the less evident because in that department 
of knowledge no such master-principle has been dis- 
covered, or at least agreed upon. The subtle contro- 
versies of metaphysics all spring out of the attempt to 
fasten upon some primal fact which shall settle the 
ground of knowledge, and authenticate the phenomena 
of intelligence. 

So in the field of morals. We anxiously inquire 
whether a man has a leading principle — some master- 
key of motive and purpose ; and we ask What is 
that master-principle ? It does not require a great 
occasion, or a multitude of deeds. A small act will 
sometimes determine a man's ethical condition, and 
indicate the law of his mind. As a general rule, it 
will decide the point whether he has any fixed moral 
principle at all ; and if so, of what kind his morality 
is — whether it is the absolute and immutable morality, 
or only the morality of expediency. It takes but a 
little while for a man of common shrewdness to make 
up his mind about this, and to be convinced that he 
has made it up rightly. One clear case about settles the 
question. There are men every shred of whose daily 
habits shows that really they have no moral principle 
at all, but go as the winds go. A small lie, if it actu- 
ally is a lie, condemns a man as much as a big and 
black falsehood. The world judges with sufficient 
acuteness, that if a man will deliberately cheat to the 
amount of a single cent, give him opportunity and he 
would cheat to any amount. When unmistakably, in 
cool blood and mature thought, he has done this thing 
once, lie may put on any amount of decencies, and 



230 



SELECT SERMONS. 



whine out all sorts of professions ; — we know his metal 
and have the measure of him. On the other hand, we 
do not need martyr-stakes, nor battle-fields, nor any 
public scenery, to show us the good and true man. 
His little acts, his daily conduct, will furnish tests. 
One flash reveals the diamond. One instance of posi- 
tive temptation makes known the atmosphere in which 
he lives, and the law that is written on his heart. 

Surely, then, all these instances are merely varieties 
of the principle, that if we know one parable we know 
all parables. And if the test thus holds good in the 
physical world, in mental processes, and in the region 
of morals, may we not expect to find it in existence as 
a whole — may we not expect to find it in the manifold 
experiences and mysteries of human life ? I think it 
will prove true, that if a man thoroughly, or I may say 
even approximately, understands any one fact of his 
daily experience, in this result he has a clue for the 
whole of life. Or, to state the proposition in another 
form, he must have the right clue or theory of life or 
he cannot understand any single fact in life. It makes 
little difference which form we take. The knowledge 
of the one involves the knowledge of the other. As an 
instance, take anything : take any gift of daily Provi- 
dence — take any misfortune — and I maintain that if 
we truly understand that thing, we have a key to the 
entire mystery of life. And the proposition is no more 
forcible when I say that we must have a key to all the 
mystery of life in order rightly to understand any sin- 
gle instance or fact of life. 

But this suggestion is intimately connected with an- 



THE PARABLES OF PROVIDENCE. 



231 



other, the illustration of which will still further illus- 
trate the meaning which I draw from the text. It will 
be seen, I think, that in its very terms these words of 
our Saviour are closely related to the point which I now 
proceed to urge. That point is this : that not only 
are there parables in the New Testament, parables in 
the Bible, — but there are parables in the entire scheme 
of our existence. I do not mean to speak metaphori- 
cally. It appears perfectly consistent with facts to say, 
that the method of Christ in the New Testament is the 
method of Providence in nature, and in human life. 
We are taught by parables every day, and through 
them we are led into essential truths. If we attend, 
if we search with an earnest spirit, we shall break 
through the mere crust of things to absolute and eter- 
nal realities. The more we lend of heart and soul to 
such realities, the more shall we receive. To him that 
hath shall more be given. And thus, touching reality 
upon any single point, we shall feel the heart and 
meaning of the great whole. Otherwise, blind and 
heedless as to these daily instances, we are ignorant of 
the true scheme of being, whatever may be the scope 
of our knowledge in other respects. For if we know 
not this parable, how shall we know all parables? 

I have said that these parables are to be discovered 
in the entire scope of our existence. They appear as 
a symbolical representation, or veiling of facts, in things 
around us. We do not touch the spiritual fact itself ; — 
it is masked by some material form, it is conveyed to us 
by some suggestion ; and our discernment of it depends 
upon our attention to it and our sympathy with it. 



232 



SELECT SERMONS. 



In the sense thus indicated, nature is a great system 
of parables. Of course, if we take bald materialistic 
ground — if we say that the natural world has its pro- 
foundest and its exclusive expression in the results of 
science, my proposition may be termed fanciful. But 
surely nature is more than a series of physical facts or 
forces. It contains something better than what it 
yields to the chemist or the astronomer. If we regard 
it merely as a piece of mechanism, the inference re- 
mains that like any other piece of mechanism it exists 
for something beyond itself. If we stop with its influ- 
ence upon the human intellect alone, we find that it 
imparts more than dry information of laws and phe- 
nomena. It serves a higher end than this in the gen- 
eral culture and enriching of the human mind. The 
geologist, or botanist, gets something more than the 
items of his special science. He imbibes inspiration 
for all his faculties, and gains a larger measure of 
mental power. 

How much more important than the mere fact is the 
subtile life that flows through the fact, elevating the 
plane of our own being, and sending us with finer and 
more comprehensive thought into the fields of medita- 
tion and of effort ! Nature will not stand as a mere 
cabinet of dead forms, or a gallery of catalogued facts. 
She pours into the soul of man mystic currents of spir- 
itual life, and draws him with " the sweet influences of 
the Pleiades." 

But if in its relations to the intellect nature reveals 
itself as something more than an assemblage of scien- 
tific facts, it presents still deeper meanings for the 



THE PARABLES OF PROVIDENCE. 



soul. To that this external universe unfolds itself as 
the vail of a spiritual essence, and all things which it 
contains are symbols of Divine intelligence and love. 
Thus every little flower becomes a parable suggestive 
of something greater than itself, while to the same 
end " Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto 
night showeth knowledge." Some spiritual law, some 
inward truth, is veiled in these transient draperies of 
sense and time. Hill and valley, seas and constella- 
tions, are but stereotypes of divine ideas appealing to 
and answered by the living soul of man. How else can 
Ave explain the immeasurable suggestiveness of every- 
thing which the human spirit feels but never can com- 
pletely express ? Surely, it is not a fanciful view of 
nature to consider it as a vast volume of parables, 
veiling yet suggesting spiritual realities. 

And in this way we may regard the trials, the vicis- 
situdes, the entire round of things making up the sum 
of human experience. Each of these unfolds some 
providential lesson containing more than appears upon 
the surface, often veiling spiritual blessings under 
forms of temporal calamity ; the most common fact — 
incidents of the wayside and the market, the field and 
the home, being the crust or shell of hidden and divine 
meanings, into which, if we look, as the disciples of 
Jesus looked into His symbolical teachings, we shall 
discern the purpose and grasp the real significance of 
life. 

As Christ taught His hearers by the sea-side and on 
the mountain, so clay by clay Providence is teaching- 
all men by parables ; teaching those that will attend 



284 



SELECT SERMONS. 



and consider. Often are these parables indeed " dark 
sayings," and the symbol we encounter is a sad and 
perplexing riddle. My friends, I put the question to 
you — Is all the meaning of life upon the surface ? Is 
the fact of the moment the ultimate fact ? Are we to 
regard nothing but the visible and temporary phase in 
which things occur to us ? Or, shall we say that these 
are sent to lead us to something better — something 
spiritual and permanent — and that their very object is 
to try us ; to test our dispositions and qualities of 
soul ; to prove whether we really would know more of 
our being and its relations than we can gain from a 
superficial glance ; to settle the question whether we 
desire a profounder and more lasting good than this 
world can give ? The great system of the world seems 
to move parallel to this plan — that to those who have, 
who cherish this spiritual desire and this spiritual 
vision, more is given ; even in worldly trial and loss 
far more and better is given — while those who have 
not, whose dispositions are sensual and earthly, in the 
vanishing of temporal good lose even that which they 
had, lose all they had. It appears then to be sound 
doctrine to say that human life, and especially the 
deeper shades and mysteries of human experience, arc 
involved with parables. 

For instance, there is the parable of disappointment, 
coming in the symbolism of a driving and relentless 
fate that balks faithful endeavor and blasts reasonable 
expectations. The sower patiently scatters his seed, 
watering every furrow witli honest sweat, but no har- 
vest ripens for him. The results of his pains- taking 



THE PARABLES OF PROVIDENCE. 235 



toil are poverty and neglect. He plants, but others 
gather. The seed-grain of his hope has been snatched 
up by the fowls of the air, and trampled by wayside 
feet. He sees others who have done no more than he ; 
nay, who perhaps have labored less faithfully in their 
lot, who have attained their ends even by mean and 
dishonorable expedients ; he sees these moving onward 
in the full sweep of prosperity, while he, as the winter 
of life closes around him, and the snow begins to whiten 
in his hair, and the powers of his mind and body fail, 
falls defeated, sore-hearted, broken, upon the verge of 
the grave. Is it any wonder that thousands in this 
condition ask what life means, and throw out doubt- 
ful questions as to its purpose ? 

Does not death often appear as a dark parable ? 
Perhaps to many it is a wonder that it should come at 
all in a universe that is so full of possibility and of 
beauty — a wonder that it should stand as an irrepeai- 
able ordinance in the government of a merciful and 
Almighty Creator. But especially is it a wonder that 
it should come, as it often does, not as the crown and 
fruition of a life filled up and ready for a larger pur- 
pose ; but as a canker in the bud, as a mildew on the 
young and gentle flower, as a blight falling in summer 
on the unready though shining grain. What does it 
mean to the mother, with her infant hope pale and 
stricken in her arms ? What does it mean to those 
who walk in sad procession, carrying the young, the 
affectionate, domestic virtue, bridal beauty, virgin in- 
nocence, summoned thus imperatively into its dim and 
silent kingdom ? What does it mean when manly 



236 



SELECT SEKMONS. 



usefulness, arm of strength, heart of bravery, teeming 
brain of genius, drop all their purposes and file off, as 
unransomed conscripts, in the great army that forever 
marches through its open gates ? 

There, too, are the social problems that meet us every- 
where — we may call them parables of civilization. 
There are the ghastly riddles of vice and crime, of 
privation and poverty, of broken-hearted labor, of ex- 
posed and brutalized childhood, of man's infamy and 
woman's shame, of successful fraud and polite corrup- 
tion, of religion red with persecution, and liberty strick- 
en down in its own name, of pampered heartlessness 
and splendid guilt, and oppression that " maketh a wise 
man mad." Why these terrible enigmas, oozing from 
the very core of our refinements ? Why these lagoons 
of abomination, soaking the very foundation-stones of 
this gorgeous Venice of material pomp and social ex- 
altation ? 

Surely, then, we may call these, and similar instances, 
parables of Providence — hints and symbols veiling 
deeper meanings, pointing to wider and more enduring 
facts. And I ask if, in this very conception of things, 
there are not help and consolation for all who are 
stricken or troubled with the mysterious dispensations of 
life ? In any such instance it may be that they do not 
immediately see its profoundest meaning, do not see all 
its meaning ; and not doubting the wisdom and benefi- 
cence that are working in all events, as with a parable 
they will search for the significance that lies within 
and beyond. For now, taking up the proposition with 
which I started, I observe that there must be some 



THE PARABLES OF PROVIDENCE. 



237 



key by which to interpret these things. There must 
be some master-principle, by which if we gain a com- 
plete or even a proximate explanation of one great 
fact in life, we shall grasp the essential significance of 
the whole. While, failing in this, even in regard to 
the common instances of our experience, we have no 
real interpretation of life. If we know not this para- 
ble, how then will we know all parables ? 

Let us, then, venture to inquire, What is the key of 
interpretation for these parables, or problems, of human 
existence ? And, in the outset, let us admit that we can 
find no key which in our hands will unlock every diffi- 
culty, and open for us the clear reason of all things. 
We may never be able to construct any theory of the 
universe which will bring all its proceedings into accor- 
dance with our finite standards and our human ends. 
Indeed, we may reasonably suspect the mental sound- 
ness of that man who proclaims that he has a complete 
theory of things. We may, at least, be sure that any 
scheme which makes man the head and centre of all 
things will fail in its applications. The mariner knows 
but little concerning the vast unfathomable sea, who 
assumes that it was made and spread out solely for 
the advantage of his little ship. We must move very 
humbly and cautiously when we approach the bound- 
ary line of final causes. 

But so far as ive are concerned, let us inquire what 
interpretation does, on the whole, give the best ex- 
planation of things ? What most satisfies the human 
mind and heart ? And it seems a reasonable answer 
to this question to say, that whatever serves to draw 



238 



SELECT SERMONS. 



out the meaning of one perplexing instance in life, and 
to harmonize it with the general aspect of things, may 
stand as the master-principle by which the experiences 
of our existence here may be understood. 

Let us, then, consider some of the standards by 
which men may endeavor to interpret the parables of 
Providence. There are three of these, to which we 
will give our attention : 

I. The Sensual Standard. 

II. The Skeptical Standard. 

III. The Christian Standard. 

I. I observe that the first of these is essentially no 
standard at all. To the mere sensualist, life is ex- 
hausted in its phenomena. The fact, whatever it may 
be, stands only for the fact, and nothing more. We 
live to-day and die to-morrow, and our existence is 
merely a mass of sensations involved with a system of 
material objects. Practically there is only what we 
see, and taste, and handle. Joy is joy, suffering is 
suffering, death is death — and nothing more. So all 
our relations are restricted to the scope of our earthly 
vision. For us there is no God, no soul, no immortal 
future. We live upon the surface of things, and are 
engaged to the senses. We must snatch what we can 
of enjoyment from present possession, and when evil 
comes, bear up against it with apathetic philosophy, 
or succumb to it in mortal fear. 

I am not describing men who merely think this 
theory of life, but men who practise it — much the 
larger class of the two. Few would positively affirm 



THE PARABLES OF PROVIDENCE. 



239 « 



this to be their view of life, still fewer in the depths 
of their being feel it to be so. The core of the human 
heart is hardly ever reached by it. Something within 
tells us that life is more than meat or drink, and that 
we hold other than transient relations to the great 
reality of things. These conditions in which we are 
placed call out faculties and excite wants that reach 
beyond themselves, and that these conditions cannot 
satisfy. This, then, is not a satisfactory interpretation 
of these parables of Providence, inasmuch as it is no 
interpretation. 

II. But how do things appear when we apply to 
them the sceptical standard ? We will suppose that 
in this instance a man has been roused from sensual 
stupor to make some inquiry respecting the problems 
of being. He feels that there are problems. There is 
at least intellectual curiosity, if not moral anxiety, 
concerning these things. He is assured that not 
merely phenomena, not merely sensuous experiences, 
make up the sum of this universe. There is something 
behind, something deep and hidden, and at this point 
he stops. He tells us there is a problem — there are 
parables — but these parables are all dark sayings. 
The key cannot be found. The purpose of things may 
be good or it may be evil. But meditation upon it 
involves only intellectual confusion. It is veiled in 
uncertainty. 

Surely we must say that this is an unsatisfactory 
view of things. And it is admitted to be unsatis- 
factory. This is the upshot of speculation in this 



SELECT SERMONS. 



direction, that speculation is worse than useless. The 
question then is, Are we prepared to rest with this 
indefinite conclusion ? Has no key to these mysterious 
passages, no interpretation to these " dark sayings," 
been given to man ? 

III. I repeat, nothing has been given which w r ill 
clear up every perplexity, and set all things in har- 
mony with our finite and human conceptions. But 
there is that which does explain these facts in harmony 
with our profoundest needs and desires. And this is 
the interpretation of Christianity — the interpretation 
of a filial faith. This enables us to maintain that 
these instances of earthly perplexity are only means 
to higher ends — processes of temporal discipline for 
spiritual training — methods of Infinite goodness work- 
ing in harmony with a grand but unseen plan. 

I know that this is a very familiar statement, — the 
common Christian statement about things. It forms 
the staple of religious homilies upon the trials and 
mysteries of life. But what I wish you to observe is, 
that it is the only adequate interpretation of these 
things — it is the only proximate interpretation. " Of 
course," you may say, ' ; as a professed preacher of 
Christianity, we knew you vrould come to this result 
— it was a foregone conclusion in your mind before 
you touched the argument." Nay, my brethren, I 
must come to this conclusion, because there is no other 
that at all answers to the requirements of the case. 
In this conclusion we do at least gain some explanation. 
Falling back upon the theory of no-faith, we do not 



THE PARABLES OF PROVIDENCE. 



211 



alter or remove the facts, and simply leave them in 
the dark. The Christian theory at least gilds them 
with the light of this assurance, that they exist for 
spiritual and beneficent purposes — purposes accordant 
with Infinite love and Divine wisdom. And if this 
conception as to a single experience in life is fixed 
and made clear to us, then we have a key for the ex- 
planation of the whole. It may not unlock every in- 
tricate ward of mystery — it may not open every 
secret door — but our filial Christian faith in all this 
labyrinth of perplexity is the only thing that even pro- 
mises us help. 

And, therefore, because this Christian and filial 
view of things does answer to a need of the human, 
heart and mind, because it docs satisfy us at least as 
to tendencies, we may most reasonably accept it as the 
interpretation of these Parables of Providence. 

And surely in our own experience we do feel or we 
shall feel the need of some such interpretation. In 
our trials, in our blessings, in the marvels of this 
human body, in the deeper workings of this human soul, 
there are parables for us all. And I say that one such 
instance looked upon in the Christian light of God's 
Fatherhood and the immortal life, will help explain 
the whole. Find out the hidden key-note in one sor- 
row, touch but the filial chord in one troubled heart, 
and you strike the prelude of a harmony that shall fill 
heaven when shadows and parables shall pass away in 
perfect revelation, and from all souls shall rise the 
confession — " Just and true are all Thy ways, Thou 
King of saints !" 

11 



XV. 



THE BOOK OF HUMAN LIFE.* 

This is the book of the generations of Adam. Genesis v, 1. 

The chapter following these words contains a rec- 
ord of the patriarchs, from Adam to Noah. It is 
composed of a few genealogical items — simply a state- 
ment of birth, life and death. Properly speaking, it 
is a family register ; its literal application being 
limited to those whom it actually mentions. But its 
moral significance has a much larger scope, and, 
whatever we do with the question of " races, " reaches 
to all of whom Adam stands as the human type. In- 
deed, " the book of the generations of Adam' 7 suggests 
the entire book of human history and of individual 
experience, throughout all ages of the world. Even 
within the condensed statistics of this chapter, compre- 
hending a period of almost two thousand years, what 
depths of thought and what interests of life are 
crowded ! Whatever atmosphere of the marvellous 
and the Divine lingered around those patriarchal ages 

~ Preached at the close of the year. 

[242] 



THE BOOK OF HUMAN LIFE. 



243 



— whatever quality there may have been in the first 
fresh juices of mortal life to preserve its vitality and 
prolong its career ; and though the glimpses of God 
may have been clearer then, and communion with 
Him more close, the essence of our humanity was the 
same as now ; there were the same springs of action, 
and the same heart of emotion. But if Seth, and 
Jared, and Methusaleh, and Noah, were not separate 
from the common stock, then " the book of the gene- 
rations of Adam" does not terminate with the chro- 
nology of the fifth chapter of Genesis. Like the 
ancient scroll, unrolled as it was read, this book has 
been drawn out through all the successive centuries, let- 
tered with the inscriptions of human change. Or, like 
a modern volume, still incomplete, leaf after leaf has 
been added to it, in the process of man's achievement 
and of God's plan, from Adam until now. 

To bring the form of illustration which I have 
chosen as the frame-work of the present discourse, to 
a practical point, I observe, that " the book of the 
generations of Adam" may be viewed in a three-fold 
aspect, as 

I. A book of human history. 
II. A book of human experience. 
III. A book of human character. 

I. In the first place, then, there is a book of human 
history. This is a truism, and yet it implies a great 
deal. For notice, in the outset, that it indicates some- 
thing more than mere chance-work, in the course of 



244 



SELECT SERMONS. 



human events. We must not confound metaphor with 
substance, nor treat analogies of fancy as though they 
were analogies in fact. But there is this resemblance 
between the volume of human annals and a literal 
volume — that the one like the other must have had an 
intelligent origin, a mind must have conceived, ordain- 
ed, and presided over it. And if so, then there must 
be a purpose in it — there must be some significance, 
some plan, running along through it. We may not 
be able to find out this plan ; and what we assume to 
be its significance may not really be so. Probably we 
make a great many mistakes in our deductions, and 
our theories are often shallow and absurd. But this 
need not hinder us from concluding that there is a 
plan, or cause us to suppose that there is no steady 
significance at all, and that this great mass of hu- 
manity sweeps purposeless through the centuries. 
Look through the universe at large and you find that 
everything is evidently designed — is evidently adjusted 
to an end — is so fitted to accomplish certain results, 
that no scepticism can cheat us of the belief that it 
had an intelligent origin, and is subject to intelligent 
control. In tracing out the various classes and orders 
of being in nature, we read off, as it were, printed or 
published copies, the original types of which are in the 
Divine mind itself; — so clear are the evidences of sys- 
tem in the natural world, and so surely does system 
prove forethought and purpose. But is there a Divine 
plan in the material world only ? Is there none in the 
intellectual or moral world ? Is the animal economy 
governed, and not the human ? Is there design in the 



THE BOOK OF HUMAN LIFE. 



245 



movements of classes and individuals, and not' in the 
general history of mankind ? The slender conduits of 
a flower or a leaf, the finest nerves in an insect's eye, 
are regulated by unerring laws. Surely, then, the 
career of nations is not without an appointed orbit. 
Is the lesser taken care of, and the greater unprovided 
for ? We may argue that the very greatness of hu- 
manity appears in the absence of guidance or of fixed 
intention ; that whatever its relations to matter, or 
whatever the analogies between it and the external 
world, it is something very different from organized 
bodies or physical forces, from rolling planet or flow^ 
ing river— and that its dignity is made manifest in its 
freedom from limitations, and in its power to work 
out a destiny of its own. Even if this were so, it 
would not prove the lack of a plan in human history, — 
only the grander methods by which that plan is to be 
accomplished. It leaves interstices for man's free 
will, but does not shatter the network of the Divine 
sovereignty. But humanity has its limitations and its 
laws, all the more majestically revealed by the very 
fact of its freedom. This evidence of a superintend- 
ing principle which appears in the history of man is 
not less, but more striking, than that which is revealed 
in the natural world ; and if we must ascribe the one 
to Divine control, we have far greater reason to do so 
in regard to the other. 

But let us not accept this conclusion merely as a 
formal, religious way of reading the great book of 
history — a proposition which, as a matter of course, 
you expect the preacher to offer, but which the philoso- 



246 



SELECT SERMONS. 



pher and the man of the world will look upon with 
suspicion or indifference. I maintain that if this is a 
false reading, then is history an inexplicable chaos, 
and the higher departments of the universe are less 
provided for than inferior sections. On the other 
hand, if it is the true reading, then it is no mere for- 
mal conclusion. It is a fact always fresh and inspir- 
ing, that God fore-east the great outlines of human 
history, and holds the volume of its teeming events 
in His own hands. It is consoling to detect His 
device in the initial letter, and to see His own auto- 
graph written across the page. In the wild sweep of 
events, in the complexity of transactions that almost 
drown our hopes, it inspires us to think that in His 
own calm eternity He projected this book of the 
generations of Adam, and that, opening for darker or 
for brighter issues, it lies on the steps of His throne. 

And if consoling, so also is it instructive and full 
of needed warning, to feel God's hand in the thick of 
affairs, to know that every lie shall be cancelled, and 
every truth come out in its own proper light ; to see 
the lines of a rectifying Providence, sometimes faint, 
but always sure, running through the ages. Such a 
faith in the Divine origin of humanity and in a con- 
trolling God is as rational as it is religious — as far 
removed from superstition on the one hand, as it is 
from a cheerless atheism on the other. At least, let 
me ask, If the religious reading of history is not the 
true reading, what is ? Where shall we find a more 
true or a better reading ? 

Again, looking upon human history as a book, we 



THE BOOK OF HUMAN LIFE. 



247 



regard it as having a beginning and a development. It 
is not a monotonous repetition of events, but a prog- 
ress towards an end. Studying it apart from the 
light of revelation, as a representative record of hu- 
man civilization, it commences with myths and sym- 
bols, and gradually expands into the abstract and 
definite science of our own day. Many a fanciful 
picture adorns its earlier pages ; many a beautiful 
fable is mixed with its elementary truth. But as these 
fade away in clearer knowledge, and facts take the place 
of poetic shapes and colorings, it grows all the more 
rich and interesting. New harmonies come out, and 
records of splendid achievement find a place. True, 
it also unfolds much that is monstrous and discourag- 
ing ; fearful revelations of human sin, and problems 
which seem to grow inexplicable. Sometimes in pon- 
dering its developments, it seems as though the leaves 
had been turned back, and we were reading some 
primeval or mediaeval page. But perusing this book 
with a comprehensive and discerning spirit, we find it, 
on the whole, a register of growth and improvement. 
Our better knowledge shedding light upon these forms 
of evil, shows more of their intrinsic hideousness. A 
fuller life stirring the energies of the human soul, rouses 
the activity of the bad as well as of the good. But 
surely the grand current of events runs not downward 
or backward. The spirit within these rapid wheels 
of time, turning them this way and that, still moves 
them forward and to blessed ends. Human progress 
is not an affair of human measurement, but goes on 
within the scope of His transactions with whom one 



248 



SELECT SEKMONS. 



day is as a thousand years. "The book of the 
generations of Adam " is a record of advancement ; 
of a better future slowly yet inevitably unfolding out 
of the past. 

And once more I remark, that this Book of human 
history has its lessons. I have said that we can hardly 
construct a satisfactory theory of things as a whole. 
It might be a difficult task to prove that history 
steadily teaches this or that point, — there are so many 
complications in events, and we are so liable to be 
deceived by partial or superficial standards. But if 
it cannot always be read for wide applications, or as 
an absolute standard, we may study it for special pur- 
poses. It inspires us by great examples. It shows us 
the beauty of goodness. It teaches the uses of evil. 
And we may draw from it two conclusions. First, 
that human nature is the same in all ages. That the 
spriugs and elements of action do not vary — only the 
circumstances. That we ourselves are the weak and 
tempted man of whom we read upon some storied 
page ; that with like trials we should be apt to do as 
he did ; nay, that in our own theatre of action we 
actually do as he did. We may learn, too, that ours 
is the privilege of all noble performance. That, though 
with less elevation before the eyes of the world, in 
our consecration to the right, in the bravery of princi- 
ple, we may act as did the hero or the martyr. Every 
man in this world, be he boot-black or emperor, is a 
complete instrument. He may be of greater or less 
compass, but he has all the harmonies — the entire 
diatonic scale, every chord, every octave. In some 



THE BOOK OF HUMAN LIFE. 



249 



way the eternal grandeurs strike him, sounding the deep 
tones of faith and conscience ; in some way the world 
touches the meaner and flatter keys. The great thing 
to be considered is, what kind of music he habitually 
makes. In his own way, be it ever so narrow or faint, 
lie has his chance of adding to that symphony of 
heaven upon earth which all good men help to make, 
and by which they march. This, then, is one lesson 
which we may surely draw from the book of human 
history — that the men of whom we read differed from 
each one of us only in conditions, not in the springs 
and ends of action. 

And the other lesson to which I alluded is this — 
that righteousness triumphs. Of course, we must not 
employ the measurement of years, hardly of centuries. 
But we must take up a lapse of time so comprehensive 
that we can surely say of anything — " It remains" — 
" It is permanent.*' Evil may ride in rampant victory, 
and falsehood sit crowned upon a throne. They may 
triumph so utterly, they may reign so persistently, that 
offended souls may cry out in mournfulness or in indig- 
nation — "0 Lord, how long?" Longer than your 
lifetime or "than mine, it may be. Longer than any 
prophet can see into the future. " But what will 
finally abide ?'" that is the question. What does 
abide now from all the life of past ages ? Not the 
material forms of things. Not the external condi- 
tions in which truth found its hindrances, or error 
its strength. Only ideas live. Only principles re- 
main, to hold dominion -over the earth, and to inspire 
men with their own life. Corruption may mark an 



250 



SELECT SERMONS. 



epoch. Persecution may domineer. But this is no 
criterion of final ascendancy. Voluptuousness ruled 
in the ancient cities of the East. But their magnifi- 
cence is dust, and only the pure truth now shines out 
upon us from their giant skeletons and scattered bones. 
Power put forth its armed hand to crush the infant 
Faith in heathen Borne. But heathen Rome is not, 
and the infant Faith stretches its sceptre over lands 
that never saw the imperial eagles. Let us estimate 
not what prevails in one time, but what prevails in all 
time. Let us notice not the transient shape of things, 
but the noiseless spirit that leaps out of them. After 
the volleying musketry and the roll of drums, goes 
the resistless march of ideas, invisible and with silent 
footsteps. 

" Avenge," cries the poet, 

" Avenge, 0 Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones 
Lie bleaching on the Alpine mountains cold." 

But there comes no visible vengeance, no flash from 
the sky, no retributive thunderbolt to strike the bloody 
m persecutor from the earth. And yet those martyred 
saints are avenged. Those bleached bones preach 
with everlasting testimony. And God's truth, like a 
sentinel, paces the bleak ramparts round about them, 
to vindicate their cause, and to consecrate their rest- 
ing-place forever. Therefore, we must reckon as suc- 
cessful not the thing that is exalted in splendor and 
that flourishes in outward signs of power ; but the 
thing that abides — the ideas that went out of Paul's 
dungeon, and from lonely Patmos ; out from arenas 



THE BOOK OF HUMAN LIFE. 



251 



and catacombs ; from the flames of Cranmer's red-hot 
stake and the bloody scaffold of Sidney ; from the 
psalms in the little cabin of the Mayflower and the 
peaceful council on the shores of the Delaware. 

Reckoning by these standards, I repeat, we draw from 
the book of human history the lesson that righteous- 
ness triumphs — that only God's Laws remain supreme. 
A great lesson to inscribe on the banners of a nation ; 
a great lesson to write on the walls of senate-houses ; 
to print deep in the hearts of those who make the 
laws and decide the destinies of a people. 

Surely, then, it is instructive to regard human his- 
tory as a great volume — " the book of the genera- 
tions of Adam " — full of strange events, but also of 
unerring laws ; full of the deepest interest and the 
loftiest promise ; marked with many a trace of sin 
and suffering, but also stamped with God's own hand. 
A great volume ! ever unfolding, turning leaf after 
leaf as the swift years pass away. 

II. I observe, in the second place, that " the book 
of the generations of Adam " is a book of human 
experience. A book of the deepest interest to every 
man for himself, and also of the deepest interest 
to those who look on if only they will heed. No 
man's existence is really insignificant ; no human life 
is uninteresting. That life bound up in the homeliest 
coverings, and found in the most common-place condi- 
tions, is really a volume of great events and pregnant 
lessons. There are two such events at least which 
enclose the career of every child of Adam. 



252 



SELECT SERMONS. 



Birth — the advent of a conscious being ; the blossom- 
ing of a human soul ! Here is a matter of thought for 
us if we were only alive to the interest which is con- 
tained in the most common things. Out of such things 
in the material world the grandest discoveries are 
made. In substances right around us are concealed 
those unseen forces that may drive the wheels of civil- 
ization, and unfold the destinies of the world. But 
if such are the elements of interest in material things, 
how profound should be the emotions awakened by the 
birth of a human being — the introduction into life of a 
conscious and ever -unfolding spirit ! New hopes, new 
fears, new streams of affection, are then set in motion. 
The circle of human relations is enlarged — the aspect 
of the past and future is changed. Take the most 
humble man you find in your daily walks — take the 
merest fragment or wreck of a man, — the beggar, the 
drunkard, the child of shame. Consider with what 
likelihood, when that one was born, somewhere there 
was the deepest interest. There was the marvel of a 
new soul, plastic from the hand of God, and clothed in 
wondrous material drapery. Yery likely that now 
uncouth and grimy face once looked beautiful, at least 
to one, as it lay in the embrace of that love which it 
had awakened, and which went rippling upward from a 
mother's heart. Or if orphaned and outcast, still there 
was a moral force sent into existence, with which no en- 
ergy of the material universe can be compared. No one 
comes into this world of whom we may not say — ■ 
" Wonder of God's workmanship ! spring of life never 
to be exhausted ! incarnate spirit, whose earthly career 



THE BOOK OF HUMAN LIFE. 



253 



will be longer or shorter, but who at all events will 
burst this shell of flesh and go forth among the reali- 
ties of eternity ! " And this incident of birth, this 
initial fact of individual life, constitutes one passage 
in " the book of the generations of Adam." 

And to close that mystic volume, be it no longer 
than a span, no more pregnant in its contents than the 
record upon an infant's tomb-stone, there is the experi- 
ence of death, the messenger who writes the " finis," 
who puts a clasp on the book and lays it by forever. 
Sometimes upon that clasp there is a date and epitaph, 
a little flourish of pomp and honor, and sometimes, as 
in life, it is left homely and undistinguished. But this 
is about all the difference in the end between those 
who, in their lives, were so marked off and divided. 
Whatever circumstance may have been crowded be- 
tween that introductory and this final leaf, these are 
the conditions that bound and characterize each and 
all, — infant, patriarch, hero, slave, philosopher, clown ! 
In these passages your lives ran in a common experi- 
ence. You each and all entered life helpless and with 
feeble breath ; helpless and with feeble breath you 
vanished out of it. And how much there is in this to 
make the book of every man's life, even of the most 
ordinary man's life, of the deepest interest to us ! 
How much to freshen within us a sense of the Father- 
hood that embosoms us all, the Providence that cares 
for us all, the destinies that obliterate so many of our 
vain distinctions ! For by and by, with very few excep- 
tions, these will be almost the onty fixed data as to any 
of our race now upon the earth, as to any of ourselves — 



254 



SELECT SERMONS. 



data which any man shares in common with the most 
insignificant. " He lived ! " " He died ! " So did the 
king who reigned right royally, so did the peasant who 
was placed coarsely and meanly, so did Dives, and so 
did Lazarus at his gate, thousands of years ago. So, 
0 rich man, with your estate and equipage ! so, 0 
candidate for human honors, heaved for a little while 
on the top-wave of popularity ! so, 0 maiden, su- 
preme in your little court of beauty ! — so will you fade 
and vanish, leaving little more than the fact of your 
being and the place of your ashes, nay, your existence 
itself only made evident by those ashes, those ashes 
themselves, as the years roll on, dissolving — and so there 
will be nothing to distinguish you from the poor, and 
the^despised, and the ungainly. 

But do you hope to live in tender memories and 
sweet extracts of affection, in the circle of the friendly 
and the loving? So you may. But so the poor and 
obscure will, thrilling pulses that their own pulses 
have throbbed against ; — some heart keeping green 
and fresh for them longer than their graves do ; some 
little space of earth tapestried with kindly recollec- 
tions of their homely and honest lives. Nay, the poor 
may cherish a deeper and more enduring remembrance 
of their departed ones than the rich and great. They 
have less to distract them from it, and perhaps more 
trials to keep it fresh and sweet. They have no occa- 
sion to slaughter their affection over the dead man's 
will, or by envies and jealousies to mar that bond of 
sympathy which has twined them together. There are 
not so many living voices speaking to them kindly and 



THE BOOK OF HUMAN LIFE. 



255 



encouragingly, that they should forget the familiar voice 
that is now silent at the fire-side. They have not so 
many broad acres that they overlook the humble mound 
in the churchyard. Therefore memory may be the 
richest treasure that they have. The poor man may 
struggle on, feeling as if the last pressure of his dead 
wife's hand were the only bond to hold him to effort 
and to duty ; while the hard-working mother may 
wear her child's memory in the heart as a jewel which 
flashes a celestial light around her path for evermore. 

But, rich or poor, obscure or grand, in a little while 
these household circles themselves dissolve, and these 
remaining friends themselves drift away, and the 
memory becomes a tradition, and the tradition is for- 
gotten. 

It is a very common reflection, but surely it comes 
very impressively to us with every closing year, that 
those who now make up the multitude of the gay, the 
busy, the distinguished, will soon fall back into the 
indiscriminate dust that covers all the ages behind us. 
Our little circle of notoriety and influence — the great 
man of his associates, his party, his sect, his genera- 
tion even— how soon swallowed up in the expanse of 
the common ocean. As the mists of time settle down, 
how little can we distinguish the king's crown from the 
beggar's head ! How soon these distinct individuali- 
ties became merged in that general mass which makes 
up the one great volume — " the book of the genera- 
tions of Adam." 

But you may say — " Influences will go out from indi- 
vidual lives, that will show that these have existed. 



256 



SELECT SERMONS. 



and that will give to each a kind of earthly immor- 
tality." Bat this depends upon our use of special con- 
ditions which fall to our lot between these tvfo limita- 
tions of birth and death. 

These, then, are the common features in the great 
book of human life. But there are features peculiar 
to each of us which make up the significance of that 
volume. Each has his own capacities and blessings, 
his own trials, his own phases of providential action. 
And in what I have said of this vanishing and absorp- 
tion of our individual peculiarities, I would not cover 
up the fact that the force of our lives is felt in some 
way. As the years pass, as the very last leaf of this 
year now rustles in the winter wind, I would that each 
of us might think seriously of the portion that is 
already turned over forever ; of the little space that 
at the most remains between the limits of birth and 
death ; the passages of so many years recorded and gone. 
And, in connection with this thought, I would also that 
each of us might inquire what sort of a volume of 
general influence we are making up — an influence that 
will remain when we have departed — an influence that 
goes out now, every day. Reflect, I beseech you, upon 
the conditions of your past life — reflect upon the fact 
that out from it, as surely as you live, for good or evil, 
there goes an influence adding to that volume of com- 
mon destinies — "the book of the generations of 
Adam." 

III. But there is a book more positive and personal 
in its contents than any I have yet mentioned. It is the 



THE BOOK OF HUMAN LIFE. 



257 



book of human character. It is the book of every 
man's inward and spiritual life. This is a sacred vol- 
ume ; a volume that no other man's eye can read, the 
perusal of which we ourselves are apt to neglect, but 
one that is ever open to the Omniscient eye, and 
whose pages are the red-leaved tablets of the heart. 
This is the true private account of stock and capital, 
of profit and loss. 0 merchant or mechanic, so anx- 
iously balancing your accounts for the year ! there 
is stated the precise amount of your real wealth, the 
only scrip and substance you can carry with you when 
the years pass away. 0 politician, man in office and in 
power ! there is the register that enrolls your actual 
honors, and shows to what you are elected. The types 
of character stamp deeper than printing-presses, and 
will tell your story better than all the newspapers. 
0 mariner ! there is the log-book of years, declaring 
what course you have held in your earthly voyage ; 
there is the chart that indicates upon what shoals and 
breakers you may be driving now. Youug man — 
young woman! there is the journal of your daily life ; 
there is the remembrancer that records no compliments, 
no flatteries, only the plain honest truth ; blotted it 
may be with passages of sin and shame, and let us 
hope here and there with penitent tears ; dedicated, 
let us pray, for its future pages, with a new year's res- 
olution that shall be answered and blessed in the rec- 
ord. Is not that indeed a most important book, the 
book of character, that is surely and constantly written 
in the soul's life of every one of us ? Remember that 
beside the volume which goes on with every year, re- 



258 



SELECT SERMONS. 



cording what we gain or lose of outward possession, 
what we have or what we do, there proceeds this in- 
ner record stereotyping what we are. 

And let me say, that this is a book which is both in 
our own control, and is not in our own control. It is 
in our control before we speak and act, but not so ever 
after. The evil passion — its characters are all engrav- 
ed there, and what a fearful picture is it to look back 
upon ! The angry word — there it is printed quicker 
than the telegraph can do it. And our life in all its 
passages is there, translated into imperishable history. 
Surely here is a " book of the generations of Adam'' 
in which we are, of all things, most deeply interested. 
Let me ask, Do we keep it shut ? Do we never consult 
those interior pages, in our carelessness, or in our 
guilty consciousness ? Yain is our neglect. The 
story is written — whether we peruse it or not, it is 
written — and it will come out in the unmistakable lines 
of character. 

But what wise and earnest man would fail to look 
into that volume, especially in these closing hours of 
the year ? It is a book for you to ponder in your 
own solitary searchings ; it is a book for you to com- 
pare with that other volume whieh contains the Divine 
precepts of Jesus. Oh, how unwise is he who lets 
that record proceed, as most surely it does proceed, 
and who does not see or care what is written in it ! 

" The book of the generations of Adam !" Yast 
and diversified volume, handed down from age to age, 
with all Time's record printed in it ; each year adding 
to its bulk ; each year suggesting how swiftly these 



THE BOOK OF HUMAN LIFE. 



259 



generations pass away ! How momentous the interest 
gathered in it ! Great life-journal of the centuries ! 
What marvels, what mysteries, what tears and prayers, 
what shames and splendors, are traced all over its 
pages ! 

" The book of the generations of Adam !" a book 
of human experience, varied in each copy, yet essential- 
ly the same ! marked by the same initial and final 
facts, yet diverse in its record according to our use of 
our conditions. 

" The book of the generations of Adam ! " a book 
of human character, unfolding for each of us a deep 
and private record, — a secret diary of the heart and 
the conscience ! And now, my brethren, we have al- 
most done with another year. Shall we not pause o\ er 
these recorded pages of the past, and say, with earnest 
prayer, what, God permitting, that secret writing shall 
be in the future ? 

See, the last leaves of the year are turning ! turn- 
ing to record the course of nations. Trembling leaves 
of destiny ! turning to take the memorials of human 
experience in birth and death and varying action. 
Most momentous of all, these leaves are turning to 
recount the inmost decisions of our souls. Externally 
there may appear no difference. There may be no 
outward sign, no jar of transition, when the old year 
passes into the new. But in the silence of outward 
and material things, all the more impressive is the 
spiritual suggestion. In the still and solemn night, 
when the moon shines down upon the graves of de- 
parted generations, upon the flitting ghosts of our past 



260 



SELECT SERMONS. 



hours and the shadows of our neglected opportunities, 
in the great cathedral of time a leaf is turned, — a leaf 
on which all who live will surely write. My friends, 
carrying the resolutions of the passing year into the 
first hours of the new, what, oh, what shall be our 
record on the page that God may freshly open for us 
in " the book of the generations of Adam ? " 



XVI. 



HUMAJST LIMITATIONS. 

Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stat- 
ure? Matthew vi, 21. 

The knowledge of human limitations is an element 
of human power. Having ascertained how far we can 
actually go, the area of possibility is then made plain ; 
and the energies which have been diffused in fruitless 
effort may be called in and concentrated upon avail- 
able ends. To a mind thoroughly bent on any great 
and good achievement, every failure is a latent success. 
In every obstacle that balks its enterprise, it catches a 
hint of the true method ; and wherever it strikes the 
boundary-wall of attainment, it identifies the one sure 
channel that leads on to victory. 

I would, therefore, call your attention to the fact, 
that in the text our Saviour does not teacli a lesson of 
fruitlessness, but a method of power. It is no dis- 
heartening voice that speaks here, and says — "Because 
by taking thought we cannot add one cubit unto our 

stature, there/ore truth is unreal, and good unattaiu- 
(261) ' 



262 



SELECT SERMONS. 



able — so, let us have no aim and put forth no strenu- 
ous attempt ; but let us eat and drink, for to-morrow 
we die." But Christ's question, in the words before 
us, is really an inspiring exhortation which rallies 
our souls, enfeebled by unproductive anxieties, or 
probing with vague desire the realm of mystery ; to 
one great end — one worthy and victorious effort com- 
manding all the energies of our being — seeking " The 
Kingdom of God and His righteousness." 

Our thoughts being called in from vain speculations, 
may be concentrated upon practical ends, and thus 
they will become so much additional force in the com- 
pass and volume of our life. Let us, then, consider 
certain limitations which are suggested in the text, 
and the possibilities which they still leave open to us, 
and upon which, therefore, we may concentrate our 
powers. I will distribute what I have to say at this 
time under the heads of, 

I. Natural limitations. 
II. Limitations of the human intellect. 
III. Limitations of moral effort. 

I. I observe, then, in the first place, that the text 
suggests certain physical or natural limitations, re- 
specting which it is in vain for us to take anxious 
thought. In fact, this is the direct application of the 
words before us. We cannot, by any amount of desire 
or effort, alter a natural ordinance. " Which of you 
by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stat- 
ure?" Of course, nobody attempts to do this thing 



HUMAN" LIMITATIONS. 



263 



literally. Christ did not charge any one with making 
such an attempt. The very manner in which lie puts 
the question indicates the result as one for which no 
man would be so absurd as to strive. But the fact of 
His asking the question also shows that there are 
things just as unattainable concerning which men are 
anxious. It is as though the Saviour had said — " If 
by taking thought you cannot add one cubit unto your 
stature, why take thought about things that are equal- 
ly vain ?" This, as it appears to me, is the point of 
the Saviour's argument here ; and it is an argument 
similar in its tendency that I now wish to urge. 

I ask, then — Why should we take anxious thought 
concerning other limitations of our humanity which 
are just as unalterable as our bodily stature ? For in- 
stance, there is the fact of mortal decay — the brevity 
of our lives. Now, of course, nobody attempts to pre- 
vent these ordinances that are so unpreventable. But 
men are prone to do what is just as useless. They 
lament and murmur over this decay and change. 
They indulge miserable thoughts about it. Therefore, 
in such cases, the question is strikingly appropriate — 
" Who by taking thought can add one cubit unto his 
stature ?" Who by taking thought, who by anxious 
murmuring or complaining, can add to the sum of his 
days, or balk inevitable decay ? And if we cannot do 
this, then why take so much anxious thought about the 
matter? Here is a natural limitation of our hu- 
manity, upon which it is in vain to waste the energy 
of our souls in gloomy meditation. 

Ah ! yes — there is one chord in our human con- 



264 



SELECT SERMONS. 



sciousness — one key-note in our mortal experience 
— which utters the same testimony, whether for sceptic 
or Christian. It is the testimony of vanishing time, 
and of inevitable change. As the silver cord loosens, 
the revolutions of the wheel of life are accelerated. 
Months and seasons run together in ever-narrowing 
circles, until those long summers of our youth contract, 
as it were, into a single summer day, whose morning 
blossoms with June-buds and daisies, whose evening 
closes under a harvest-moon shimmering upon ripened 
fruit and corn all ready for the garner. With a more 
solemn prophecy comes each successive autumn, witli 
more significant shadows embroidered in its gorgeous 
cloth of gold. In this fullness of time and production, 
when the earth lies like a horn of plenty overrunning 
at the brim, — in this rounded completeness of the year, 
we already begin to touch the cycle of decay. The 
face of nature never more beautiful, is never more 
pensive, and as the penumbra of the approaching 
change steals over its splendor it only typifies an 
awakening sense within us of irredeemable privileges, 
of narrowed power, of a hold that is slackening day 
by day. And each recurring season, though it be with 
an index of flowers, marks off a later figure on the 
dial of our years. Its quick-declining beauty symbol- 
izes human substance and glory. Indeed, how does 
the perpetual renewal of the natural world mock our 
sure decay, and our never-returning bloom ! We fade, 
and grow old, and perish, but nature keeps ever 
young. Be our care and sorrow what they may, the 
earth renews its pomp and the heavens their bright- 



HUMAN LIMITATIONS. 



265 



ness. All these processes are unaffected by our ex- 
perience. The grass will grow as green, the leaves 
will twinkle as gloriously in the golden light, to cheer 
and welcome new generations a thousand years hence. 
How slight, then, is our significance in a world which 
is thus unmarked by our presence, and unaffected by 
our withdrawal ! And how does this eternal circuit of 
nature intensify our consciousness of our own frailty ! 

But while this assurance of passing time and of 
mortal decay touchrs such deep chords in every human 
breast, it produces different results with different men. 
In some it settles into gloomy despondency or reck- 
less levity ; in others it leads to cheerful conclusions 
and practical effort. And we need not to be told 
which is the wiser method. It is of no use to grow 
sad and anxious because our years fly away and 
our vigor relaxes. For " who by taking thought can 
add one cubit to his stature ?" Who can lengthen his 
days by repining at their brevity, or recall into his 
veins the juice of youth by pondering upon the decay 
that settles at his life-roots ? 

But do we say that this impotence of ours, this in- 
evitability of natural processes under which our life 
wastes away, is itself the very fact that should make 
us sad and fill our souls with melancholy though 
abortive longings ? But, if abortive, why cherish such 
thoughts? Is it not as idle for us to do so, as it 
would be to attempt adding, by painful tension of the 
mind, a cubit to our stature ? 

Our much thought adds nothing to our stature ; 
adds nothing to our time or strength : in one word, it 
12 



266 



SELECT SERMONS. 



gains no victory over natural limitations. And yet 
we dislike to own our mortal defeat and surrender to 
all-conquering events. Every period of life generates 
its peculiar ambition. "Man," says Sir Thomas 
Browne, " is a noble animal, splendid ' even ? in ashes, 
and pompous in the grave." The boy strives for a 
precocious manliness. The young man longs to be a 
hero. In maturer years we covet other attainments, 
and gather about us the reputation of wealth or talent. 
The strong man cannot bear to give up under the 
stroke of disease. And equally noticeable are the 
bravery and pretension with which man confronts the 
changes of time, and masks the inevitable processes of 
decay. For his part in this universal aspiration the 
old man desires to appear " as young as ever," and 
prides himself upon his agility, his endurance, and his 
promptness. Perhaps we can hardly blame the envy 
with which one looks back upon the glorious dawn 
and exuberance of youtli ; that spectacle of new, 
fresh life, tasting nature at every pore, opening to a 
consciousness of all its powers, entering upon the 
heirship of the world, profusely lavishing time and 
strength in its feeling of boundless possession. No 
joy is like that joy of novelty and increase. No 
splendor of this world is like that splendor of life's 
morning, whose pomps and possibilities all stream 
before. And we can find but little fault with this 
garrulous vanity of the aged that turns " the almond 
blossom " into a laurel wreath, and carries " the bur- 
den of the grasshopper " with an elastic step. Only 
let us realize this — that no fond desire of ours, no 



HUMAN LIMITATIONS. 



267 



anxious lamentation, alters a natural law or prevents 
a necessary result. Let us feel so, because, in the full 
conviction of our natural limitations, we shall call in 
our energies and concentrate them upon that which is 
possible. Then we shall extract from each natural 
process its spiritual incitement, and make time, and de- 
cay and death itself, yield appointed discipline. In the 
ever-changing moments we shall rest with a more 
satisfied consciousness upon the permanent good. 
The ebbing of bodily vigor will leave a culminating 
majesty of spirit ; and our thoughts, no longer drift- 
ing in vain regrets for the past, will intensify the faith 
that kindles up the future. We shall clearly see the 
work that pertains to such time and powers as are 
left to us, and calmly do it. Thus in feeling and 
effort fitted to our condition, the latter period of life 
will have a glory of its own, not like any other, but 
more excellent perhaps than any — as the winter land- 
scape excels in hoary majesty. An aged Christian, 
with the snow of time on his head, may remind us 
that those points of earth are whitest which are near- 
est heaven. 

I have illustrated my argument under this head by 
dwelling upon natural limitations as they unfold in 
the passages of time, but the consideration here pre- 
sented is equally applicable to other inevitabilities of 
human life. I hardly speak to one who has not in 
some way been touched by these processes. Hardly 
a heart beats before me that has not been scarred in 
the battle of human experience with disappointment, 
or change, or bereavement. But, in each and all, liic 



268 



SELECT SERMONS. 



truth stands clear, that we cannot alter by anxious 
thought these limitations of our mortal lot. This 
truth taken in itself is indeed bleak and discouraging, 
but taken in all its bearings it may impel us to direct 
our powers and hopes to that which is possible and 
lies at our hands. It may lead us to the conclusion 
that whatever in this great system of things is inevi- 
table is also beneficent, inasmuch as it is the will of God. 
We may feel that the mortal enclosures of our trust 
and desire are only the shells of a better life, which 
like seeds yield their true purpose when bruised and 
buried. And instead of looking backward or down- 
ward in vain regrets, in these workings of thoughtful 
experience we may be inspired to look upward and 
forward. 

II. But I proceed to observe that there are certain 
limitations of the human intellect respecting which 
we should heed the suggestion of the text. There 
are limits to human speculation which we ought to 
regard — which we must regard. There are bounda- 
ries beyond which we cannot extend the area of 
available truth. There are problems irresolvable by 
our reason, and from which we cannot detach a single 
cubit to add to the stature of our positive knowledge. 
In our curious exploration of things around us and 
within us, we arrive at points where all we can know 
is, that this or that is so ; and there is the end of the 
matter. Not that we are to discourage the exercise of 
free and bold thought. There is no limit to the activ- 
ity of the intellect. There is no limit to accessible 



HUMAN LIMITATIONS. 



269 



truth. But there is a limit to the direction of the 
pursuit ; there is a limit to the kinds of knowledge. 
There are certain land-marks in the very nature of 
things indicating the path in which we are to travel, 
though that path may be endless. The great deep of 
reality may incite us with the promise of exhaustless 
treasures, though around it all the baffled mind detects 
a mandate like the mandate that goes forth to the 
waves of the baffled sea — " Thus far, and no farther." 

At least let us recognize this fact — that around us 
there is an Unknowable. There is a firmament of 
mystery in which we are enclosed, and all profitless 
speculation in this region is vain, not only because it 
, is profitless, but because it dissipates those intellectual 
forces which might be employed upon practical achieve- 
ments. And surely, whatever may be the mental bene- 
fit ; whatever may be the ultimate hope even, in cer- 
tain speculations ; we should not dwell in these to the 
neglect of any indicated and attainable good. 

" Who by searching can find out God ?" Is not 
there a limit to a certain class of speculations ? Ob- 
serve, I say " a certain class of speculations." Not 
that I fall in for a moment with the conclusion that 
because we cannot know all concerning God, there- 
fore we really know nothing ; and that all our grounds 
of conviction are simply illusory or provisional. The 
impossibilities of intellectual achievement do not can- 
cel the facts of intuition. Nor is it an argument 
favorable to revelation to urge that revelation itself 
can give us no real knowledge of the Divine. But 
the question is, shall we pursue fruitless inquiries 



270 



SELECT SERMONS. 



about God to the neglect of those vital relations 
which we may have with God, and to the neglect of 
certain uses to which we may put His works and His 
gifts ? We do not know hoiv He made the world, but 
shall vain anxieties upon this point eclipse the mani- 
festations of His creative power, the tokens of His 
wisdom ? Shall these intellectual perplexities counter- 
balance the evidences of His existence and His pres- 
ence ? Shall we plunge into depths where we cannot 
add one cubit to the extent of our knowledge, and so 
neglect this other sphere of actual results where we 
can add so much to that knowledge, and to our power, 
and our delight ? 

We do not know how God acts upon the human 
mind, or how He touches the issues of events. It is 
not likely that we ever shall know, at least in this our 
mortal state. But shall we therefore deny the legiti- 
macy or neglect the blessings of prayer ? Must a man 
get a correct philosophy of prayer before he prays ? 
Must the child, ready to run into its father's arms, stop 
and study mental processes before it yields to the im- 
pulses of its love? Will you say to the bruised and 
bleeding heart, overswept with the anguish of sin or 
of suffering, " Hold back this impelling instinct of 
prayer until you can scientifically authenticate your 
prayer ?" Oh, if we did act thus, not only how false 
would be our philosophy, but how much of real power 
and privilege should we waste and lose ! Because we 
cannot explain all the mysteries of the Divine implica- 
tion with the affairs of the world and of men, shall the 
universe virtually become to us but a dreary net work 



HUMAN LIMITATIONS. 



271 



of laws, instead of being the vehicle of a merciful Provi- 
dence and a sympathizing Father ? 

Or. again let me ask, shall our inability to detect 
the logical hinge where the fact of Divine supremacy 
harmonizes with the fact of human free-will, weaken 
the sinews of duty, or cause us to surrender our filial 
reliance ? 

Surely we add nothing to our own stature, to our 
actual growth and substantial life, when we waste in 
vexing speculations those forces of the soul which we 
might concentrate in the work of obedience and the 
joy of reverent faith. 

But if there are regions bsyond the scope of our 
thought where we may wander with profitless if not 
irreverent curiosity, on the other hand there are areas 
for our effort in which oft-repeated failure often con- 
vinces us of a latent possibility. The attainable truth, 
the practicable achievement, throws out its hints and 
signals from afar. Permit me to draw an illustration 
from the material world and from the practical affairs 
of evcry-day life. Consider, for instance, what has 
been the inspiration of those who have essayed to con- 
quer physical obstacles, and add to the dominion of 
man over nature. In all these efforts, whatever may 
have been withheld something has been granted. Man 
lias wooed the material world as a lover woos his mate, 
detecting in every " no " a hesitating " yes." The 
granite wedges, the iron ribs, which he strikes with 
dauntless pertinacity, yield sparks of prophecy and 
echoes of hidden power. In reading the history of 
some decisive invention, we feel the grandeur of a 



272 



SELECT SERMONS. 



hereditary inspiration ; the lineal descent from man to 
man of the assured faith of some forgotten thinker, 
breaking out in abortive yet ever more hopeful forms. 
Each swart hand passing its crude work down to 
other hands that take it as a transmitted trust, until 
by and by some favored genius seizes it ; in the tangled 
mass of failures finds out the lucky, nay, the providen- 
tial clue ; pursues it with unflagging force of thought 
and will ; and the long attempted project suddenly 
leaps out a completed and magnificent achievement. 
And then with what interest we look back upon those 
thrown-by devices — those medallions in the genealogy 
of invention — those lumbering pulleys and clumsy 
wheels. For in the crudest of them all we find the 
autograph of nature's promise ; the justification of the 
poor balked thinker's instinct, as well as of the inven- 
tor's success. 

But now I would lead you up from these instances 
in the natural world, to consider how Christianity 
throws open for us the arena of practical achievement 
and attainable truth, and in that way secures our gen- 
uine growth and advancement. It does not call upon 
us for speculative effort, but for life and work. Not 
opening for us all the great deep of the Divine nature, 
or the mysteries of our own spiritual being, or the de- 
tails of the future life, it promises to confirm our 
assurance, and enlarge our spiritual knowledge in 
another way. It makes doing the condition of knoiu- 
ing. " He that will do his will shall know of the doc- 
trine." " He that loveth knoweth God." We grow 
in the comprehension of His being and of His perfec- 



HUMAN LIMITATIONS. 



273 



tions not when we attempt to fathom His infinity with 
our short measure of intellect, but as we draw near 
unto Him by the efforts of a kindred nature. Moral 
qualities are diffusive, and run at once, like electricity, 
through the entire chain of intelligences. But there 
may be an interval of many links between one man's 
thought and another's. I may not be able to compre- 
hend the philosopher's theory as it lies in his own 
brain, or as it is propounded in his formula. But when 
he utters a generous sentiment I feel its full force dash- 
ing against my heart, and humanity is sprinkled with 
its spray, the wide world over. So, if I may be per- 
mitted to carry up the comparison, I cannot expect by 
anxious thinking to comprehend God, for His thoughts 
are not as my thoughts. But his love, as it comes to me 
in daily expressions of beneficence, as it throbs in all 
the fibres of my frame, as it sifts in sunshine and drops 
in rain, I can understand. And oh ! as it beams upon 
me in the fulness of the excellence of Jesus Christ, I 
can understand it ; and looking into that benignant and 
compassionate face, the weakest and most ignorant 
man in the world understands it. 

Here, then, is the point of the argument. It is not 
that the intellect has no office to perform respecting spir- 
itual realities ; it is not that we may not speculate, nor 
try to open new crypts of truth : — but that we shall 
soon find that there is an impenetrable region, and there 
are facts concerning which we can only say that they 
are, without discovering ivhy, or how. And I say that 
it is in vain for us to beat about here. Yain, because 
we do not add anything to our real knowledge, not 
12* 

■ 



274 



SELECT SERMONS. 



one cubic to our stature, while there is a path of pos- 
sible attainment plainly indicated. It is by loving 
that we may know God ; and, however the intellect may 
confirm its testimonies, it is by doing Christianity that 
we shall become most completely assured concerning 
it. The great revelation which God has made is not 
to the speculative intellect, but to the deeper nature of 
man. It is a revelation made to the soul, to the heart, 
in the personality of Jesus Christ. And it is not by 
taking thought that we grow, but rather by drinking 
in the Divine influence, and living from the inspiration 
of that life of Christ. It is in this way that we really 
grow in almost any instance ; not so much by definite 
thought as by the subtle inflowing of a power that 
comes to vital affections and earnest sympathies. 

For example, we grow in artistic culture, we grow 
in ripeness and delicacy of taste, as we stand before 
the great masters and drink in the fulness of their 
genius, rather than by perplexed efforts to find out the 
processes of their work. So our sense of beauty and 
of grandeur grows as we lean upon the breast of 
nature and let its moods and aspects pass into us, until 
morning and midnight and noontide splendor, and 
flushes of sunset, and rock, and woodland, and vast old 
sea, become tints and forces of our own being inwoven 
among the filaments of our innermost life. So, 
then, let our thoughts upon Divine mysteries lead 
where they will, it is by looking upon the ideal of 
Jesus and seeking to apply it in the practical results 
of righteousness that we add to our spiritual substance. 
Here there is no limit, no exhaustion. There is no 



HUMAN LIMITATIONS. 



275 



bound to duty, no barrier to moral achievement. But 
these are intellectual limitations, against which we 
beat in vain, and still persisting we add not a cubit to 
our stature. 

For, let this fact be kept steadily before us. It is 
not merely the power we expend in profitless specula- 
tion that is to be estimated, but the power we withdraw 
from fruitful possibilities. However profitable in 
other respects it may be to speculate, it is worse than 
in vain if thus we neglect great and good ends. Let 
me repeat what I said in the commencement, that in 
the words before us, Christ did not teach a lesson of 
fruitless endeavor, but indicated a method of power. 
He did not say, " Thought is all in vain but it is in 
vain when you are trying to think out impossible results. 
Turn, then, from this, and think to a purpose. What 
knot in this many-stranded universe are you endeavor- 
ing to untwist ? Even could you succeed, how much 
better would you be qualified to discharge those prac- 
tical obligations which the religion of Jesus commends 
to your intellect and your heart ? What power, what 
blessedness pertaining to your essential life, would the 
solution of such problems endow you with, that the 
filial faith and the practical work of Christianity will 
mot now impart ? 0 man, wearied and worried with 
speculation upon high and mysterious things ! turn now 
to some work of unmistakable duty and benefit. And 
if you are driven by any strong conviction to say that 
these mysterious things must still be explored, it may 
be that in doing that work you will gain a steadier 
brain and a clearer eye for the exploration. Above 



276 



SELECT SERMONS. 



all, I say again, do not keep thinking there to the 
neglect of practical work. Turn your thoughts in as 
so much additional energy to accomplish that work. 

0 Church of Christ — so called — constructing sharp 
and subtle creeds ; building intellectual fabrics upon 
which you cannot bring men to agree, with which you 
cannot add a cubit to the completeness of Christian 
harmony ; for, while the heart of man answers to 
heart, thought does not answer to thought, — why not 
rely upon the method of " righteousness ?" why not 
bind together the sundered fragments of that crucified 
body by ligaments of faithfulness and arteries of love ? 
Ecclesiastical counsels, papal decrees, holy alliances, 
world conventions, — none of these can make a man 
believe that the world does not move, when he is as- 
sured that it does move. But all men, who feel the 
least breath of Christ's Spirit, admire the good Samar- 
itan, and when that Divine beneficence stretches forth 
its hands, with one consent they cry, " He doeth all 
things well !" Here is the real basis of Christian 
union : — not with your sectarian shears cutting out the 
exclusive pattern of the church, and the uniform that 
you say every Christian must wear, — excluding heretics 
who are as good as yourselves, and binding about 
your foreheads the phylacteries .of opinion, instead of 
bearing the alabaster box of a fragrant piety and an 
anointing humanity ! 

And if the latter rather than the former have not 
been made the tests of the true Church, I ask, Whose 
fault is it that we have in the world such Christian 
incongruities ? Whose fault is it that Christian civil- 



HUMAN LIMITATIONS. 



277 



ization developes the demon with the angel, and aims 
to patronize both ? Whose fault, that cannon are 
wadded with leaves from the Bible, and woman is left 
to guilty despair, and man to unregarded destitution, 
and childhood to be suckled by sin and shame close 
by the altars of the Merciful One, — while intemper- 
ance rides death's pale horse through the streets ; 
and. under the eaves of churches, the blood of that 
abused humanity which Christ represented flows to 
the ground, and its screams rise to the Lord of Hosts, 
unheard by Christians on whose hearts the texts of 
the Grospel lie as cold and hard as they do on the 
neighboring tomb-stones ? Why, surely, it is the fault 
of those who have substituted opinion for character, 
and form for life ; — who, instead of edifying the body 
of Christ blending divinity and humanity, not heeding 
intellectual distinctions, have sought to construct it 
with materials that add not a cubit to its stature. 

III. In closing, let me say a few words upon one 
other point. I allude to limitations of moral effort. 
I maintain that even in this region there are con- 
ditions in which it is in vain to take anxious thought ; 
vain to waste energies that may be turned to more 
profitable account. 

It is in vain, for instance, to brood over past sins 
and shortcomings. He who is at all awakened in his 
spiritual nature, who is at all conscious of sin, of 
course will feel, and cannot help feeling, that ''godly 
sorrow" that constitutes true penitence. And yet his 
feeling will blend the grief of penitence with the 



278 



SELECT SERMONS. 



energy of repentance, and lie will not dwell in fixed 
remorse or paralyzing regret. In no way can we 
alter our past. With all our anxious thought we 
cannot add a cubit to our stature in that direction. 
What we have done is in the hands of God, and He 
will make His own use of it. This is to be with us no 
light or careless thought — nor can it lead to any such 
conception as " doing evil that good may come," or 
" continuing in sin that grace may abound.'' No man 
ever entertains such a thought who sincerely feels his 
sins. But in humble reliance on that pardoning 
mercy which is made known to us through Jesus 
Christ, we may leave the burden of our past guilt and 
neglect with God. Feeling the impossibility of alter- 
ing what we have done, or have not done, so far as it 
stands in the fixed character of the past, we may be 
permitted to turn our thoughts and our hearts to that 
which we yet can do, and, with God's own Spirit aid- 
ing us, redeem the time. There is no lightness for the 
conscience, but there is much meaning for the willing 
soul and the ready hand in that injunction — " Go and 
sin no more." Behind us there is an irreparable past, 
but there is yet given us a practicable present. So, 
even in the highest moral conditions, knowing our 
limitations, we may recognize our possibilities and 
concentrate our efforts upon the work that summons 
us. 

And now, my hearers, I exhort you to consider what 
for each of us is the great thing in life. We soon 
learn the limitations of the senses and of all external 
possessions. We soon perceive that the profoundest 



HUMAN LIMITATIONS, 



279 



good is not money, or pleasure, or worldly fame. 
Few men need any homilies to teach them this. They 
soon reach the conviction that the great good in life 
is at least inward and belongs to our enduring nature. 
But do we attain that chief end in the mere exercise 
of the intellect? How is it, for instance, with the 
exercise and culture of the imagination ? For this is 
something loftier than mere external good ; — this may 
yield delight when external things change and pass 
away. I answer, that in youth there may be, or seem 
to be, ample time for the play of this faculty. The 
young may let their thoughts go all abroad in the 
universe, and dream their glorious dreams of what 
may be and what might be. But in maturer years the 
limitations of time and of truth press closer upon us. 
We call our thoughts in from their gay and fanciful 
wandering, and put them to the search for fact. We 
take up the telescope and the crucible — we seek to 
strike the solid ground of life and nature. But still 
the years roll on, and mere intellectual seeking does 
not gain for us that which we can call the true good 
of life. The intellect may find delight in its investi- 
gations, but by and by the heart is touched. The uni- 
verse grows deeper to our consciousness, and life grows 
more real. The dreams of imagination melt into stern 
experiences. The fabrics of our speculation fall away, 
and we are left close to the naked realities of life that 
press upon us and hem us in, and waken earnestly as 
never before the question, " What is the true object 
of our existence — what is for us the needed end ?" 
And the answer is — Whatever unfolds and enriches 



280 



SELECT SERMONS. 



the true life of the soul ; whatever binds to an eternal 
and all-sufficient good ; a good that remains when age 
and change interpose, when intellectual vigor fails, 
and which imparts to us a living hope and trust, even 
though we look back upon many sins. A good that 
comes in the consciousness of self-sacrificing effort for 
others, of humble endeavor to serve God, and from 
communion with the spirit and life of Christ. A good 
so inward, so spiritual, so immortal, that we can give 
it no other name than " the kingdom of God and His 
righteousness. 



XVII. 



THE ALABASTER BOX. 

To what purpose is this waste ? 

Matthew xxvi, 8. 

This question was asked when Mary broke the 
alabaster box and poured the ointment upon the 
Saviour's head. Matthew, in the passage before us, 
represents it as the general voice of the disciples ; but 
according to John it was especially urged by Judas. 
It might prove profitable for us to dwell upon some of 
the features associated with the words of the text. 
The entire transaction involves those slight yet vivid 
expressions of individuality which continually impress 
us with the truthfulness of the Gospel narrative. 
There, for instance, is the contrast between Judas and 
Mary. On the one hand, behold the outpouring of a 
reverent and grateful heart ; on the other, the cavils 
of a disposition cankered by covetousness, and inflamed 
by evil passions. Mary had received a brother back 
to life, and she showed her thankfulness in a costly 
offering. Iseariot, professing a zealous good-will, 
goes out to negociate the price of blood. What a 
different effect moral excellence like that of Jesus 

(281) 



282 



SELECT SERMONS. 



produces upon different dispositions ! In one, it draws 
out all that is beautiful ; in another, it excites all that 
is hateful. 

How touching, too, as well as just, is the considera- 
tion which Christ presents in reply to this remon- 
strance ! " The poor ye have always with you, but 
me ye have not always." And then, as the shadow 
of the impending event flows over his spirit and colors 
his thoughts, a still more special fitness in the gift 
suggests itself. " She is come aforehand to anoint my 
body to the burial." Jesus would countenance no 
actual waste — no diversion of good from legitimate 
ends ; and he has taught the human heart in every 
age to find objects for all its love, and channels for all 
its effort. But, surely, upon that occasion, even char- 
ity itself might waive its claims for One who opened 
the deepest springs of charity. The forlorn multi- 
tudes who, perhaps, will always accompany the march 
of society, might well afford that brief homage to 
Him who has enriched the poor with eternal life, dig- 
nified them with the consciousness of an immortal 
nature, and, where they must suffer, has taught them 
to endure. 

Nor was the breaking of that alabaster box at all a 
superfluous display. It was in profound accordance 
with the spirit of the hour. The fragrance of the 
ointment was the gratitude of humanity, as it were ? 
gushing out towards One who so deeply sympathized 
with and blessed it. And the offering itself was a 
proper symbol for Him whose work was drawing to 
a close. It was fitting that He should be anointed, 



THE ALABASTER BOX. 



283 



who, about to lie down in the embrace of the grave, 
was soon to rise a crowned conqueror over death. 
The rare occasion justified the rare gift, and a great 
crisis lent it a holy significance. There was no waste 
in the case, then, and our own hearts spontaneously 
rebuke the censoriousness of Judas, and respond to the 
praise which the Redeemer has linked with Mary's 
name. 

But these topics are collateral to the main purpose 
of the present discourse. This idea of " waste " itself, 
as it seems to me, offers some suggestions which may 
be profitably pursued. While the idea itself is too 
often illustrated in the world, men may, and sometimes 
do, misapply the term. They evidently did in the 
instance connected with the text — and this suggests 
the propriety of considering some specimens of this 
misapplication. 

I. " To what purpose is this waste ?" This ques- 
tion is sometimes put respecting things that are beau- 
tiful and costly ; and the assumption which the question 
involves is not always justified. There is a philosophy 
which repudiates everything that is not useful — and 
this would be all very well, did not its disciples hold 
a narrow idea of utility. For their conception con- 
tains only that which can be converted into food and 
raiment — which comes in a tangible shape, like money 
— which can grind and spin. Its maxims are all pru- 
dential. Its text-book is the arithmetic. Its cardinal 
virtues are industry and thrift. That higher utility 
which is involved in spiritual culture and a lofty 



284 



SELECT SERMONS. 



idealism it rejects, or knows nothing about. And so, 
according to its standards, there is a great deal of 
waste in the world beside that of meat or drink. If 
it had its way, it would daub the oracles of song with 
plaster, it would break up the master-pieces of sculp- 
ture to macadamize roads, and send the poets to the 
lunatic asylum. It cries out against any expenditure 
that goes for mere ornament, or the gratification of 
taste thinks it a pity that good solid land, which 
might be cut up into square feet and sold for building 
lots, should be left for a park or a pleasure-ground in 
the heart of the great city — where the tired and the 
sick and the sordid might be blest by the exuberance 
of nature, and coming generations walk in grateful 
memory under the murmuring leaves. It sagely sug- 
gests that future generations should take care of them- 
selves, and considers that any scheme is at once thrown 
into default, if, according to its terminology, something 
can be shown to be more "practical 11 and " useful. " 

What kind of a universe should we have had, built 
after the archetypes of this utilitarianism ? No gor- 
geous tint would have glowed upon its surface — no 
soft flower have usurped the place of more " useful " 
things ; no awful Alps would have lifted their sublime 
peaks away up to heaven ; no cataract would have 
tumbled unappropriated down the cliffs. There would 
have been no song of birds fluttering where they will 
— no inspirations of morning glory — no vistas of the 
sunset opening magnificent gates for imagination and 
for faith ; and even the earth would have dispensed 
with its curve of beauty. 



THE ALABASTER BOX. 



285 



I am speaking, it will be remembered, of that phi- 
losophy which applies the term " waste " to whatever 
is beautiful or costly ; or which calls anything " waste- 
ful ; ' that overruns the limit of material and immedi- 
ate use. I do not say that there never comes a just 
protest from this side of the question ; I am only in- 
sisting that the protest from this side is not always 
just. Let it not be supposed that I do not recognize 
and condemn the sin of actual waste, so prevalent in 
this age and in this very city. There is a waste of 
luxurious epicureanism and gorgeous display, which 
proves itself a sin both by the injury which it inflicts 
upon those who are guilty of it, and upon those who 
suffer because of it. There is an extravagance which 
balks justice, and kills honesty, and breeds evil pas- 
sions, and makes many a sumptuous drawing-room a 
hotbed of prurience and vice. There is an extrava- 
gance which sucks down credit and honor, and makes 
the business world every now and then creak and 
stagger like a foundering ship. And when we think 
of the misery with which this sumptuousness is so 
sharply contrasted — the filth, the famine, the de- 
frauded labor and hopeless poverty — we may some- 
times feel as though the pictures on the walls, and the 
figures in the embroidery, might turn into eyes and 
faces full of starvation, and blank ignorance, and 
neglected guilt. For, set the problem how we will, I 
fear that there is some connection between this super- 
abundant living on the one hand and the wretchedness 
of God's poor on the other. 

Of course 1 do not deny these facts, and have Both- 



286 



SELECT SERMONS. 



ing to say against that philosophy which attempts to 
solve one class by the other. I have much to say in 
its favor when it contends that in human society the 
essential postulate to anything higher and better is an 
adjustment of its material machinery. Every man 
knows by his own reason, by his own conscience, what 
in Ms own way of living is really waste, utterly super- 
fluous as well as unjust. But, I repeat, we must set up 
no merely material standard of wastefulness or of 
utility. I am only urging the fact that we have facul- 
ties for other purposes than to eat, sleep and labor, 
and that that is not enough for us which enables us to 
live like comfortable and respectable animals ; but 
that whatever gives our higher powers exercise and 
cultivation is useful in a nobler sense. 

There are, in fact, two kinds of economy. There is 
the economy of our ordinary living — the economy 
which involves the demands of our bodily condition, 
of our honest dealing with others, and of prudent fore- 
thought. Let that always be heeded. But there is 
also an economy of our higher nature — an economy of 
our entire being — which must not be sacrificed to any 
spurious theory of economy. Let us make a proper 
distinction between the economy of living, and the 
economy of life. A man may find it necessary to 
scrimp his body, but it does not follow that therefore 
he should starve his soul. And sometimes when, as he 
thinks, he shrewdly saves a dollar, he may be doing a 
more extravagant thing than the profligate who spends 
one. He is doing an extravagant thing if, merely for 
the sake of saving his dollar, he bars out some oppor- 



THE ALABASTER BOX. 



287 



tunity to become richer or better in his intellect or 
his heart. The practice of economy can hardly in any 
sense be called a virtue. It is frequently a necessity, 
like other qualities that are allied to it, — industry, 
promptness, probity. If these are virtues they con- 
stitute a pantheon by themselves. They do not stand 
in the same splendid temple with charity, self-denial, 
forgiveness. But there is one quality which cannot 
stand in any pantheon as a virtue, and that is, the habit 
of saving merely for the sake of saving — the fact upon 
which some men seem to pride themselves of having 
laid up so many dollars, some of them, perhaps, salted 
with the laborer's sweat, and with orphans' tears ; but 
laid up, beyond all bodily necessities, all just demands 
— for what ? Why, merely for the man to count them, 
and weigh them, and call them his own. And he all 
the while denying himself everything but what lie calls 
" barely useful planing down all the superfluity of 
living to the very last shaving, if that shaving will 
only yield him so much per cent. : neglecting all 
the higher sources of delight and of power, get- 
ting tanned clear through with selfishness, and be- 
coming that meanest thing in this world — a mean 
man. 

Now all this money laid up is, in possibility, a vastly 
good thing. But for what ? Why, for the power which 
it has in enabling us to fulfil some good end in life. 
But suppose we do not put it to any good end at all, 
or to any end except that of merely adding to its own 
amount ? Why, then it is of no more value than so 
many pebbles, and when we add to it we only add to 



288 



SELECT SERMONS. 



the heap ; we do not add to ourselves, or to the real 
wealth of humanity. And that is the essential use of 
money, or of any other element of power — to add by it 
to the real wealth of humanity in ourselves and in 
others. By its aid we must support the body which is 
the vehicle of the soul, and when we do that, this kind 
of power is useful. But we must also employ it for 
the enriching of the inner and spiritual man, and when 
we fail to do that we neglect its highest uses. And 
when we save our money at the expense of our souls, 
then saving money is not economy — it is the worst 
kind of wastefulness. 

Therefore, on the other hand, it follows that what- 
ever educates or disciplines these higher faculties of 
our being is not waste. Whatever enlarges the sphere 
of thought and peoples it with better conceptions, 
whatever lifts us above sensual impurities and grind- 
ing cares, whatever weans us from contracted and self- 
ish views, has a value which if it does not rise with 
the price of stocks does not fall with them ; for it is 
woven into the texture of our immortal being. If the 
claims of justice and of bodily necessity are satisfied, 
if there is no real extravagance or dishonesty — then 
there is a higher economy for a man to practice, and 
that is the economy of a full and generous manliness, 
as superior in its expressions to the mere routine of 
living, as the ointment which Mary poured on the head 
of Jesus was superior to the money-bag which Judas 
clutched. I repeat, the economy of a full and gene- 
rous manliness. Let us consider and cherish this. 
Let us enrich our souls as we lawfully may with all 



THE ALABASTER BOX. 



289 



beauty, with all truth, and excellence ; for this is the 
real economy of life. 

And let us regard this true economy of life, as also 
an economy of service and of the highest uses for 
others. Although you have met all business demands, 
and barred out every bodily necessity, and acquired, it 
may be, this accumulated power, you are to ask your- 
self whether by any method you have awakened or 
nourished the intellectual or moral life of your fellow- 
men ; whether you have touched by any means the 
springs of beneficent power in the world — and, in ways 
which the narrow and the selfish will perhaps call 
" waste," have helped those around you, nay, those re- 
mote from you it may be, both in time and in space, 
more truly to live. 

Elegance is not always frivolous, beauty is not 
always worthless, expenditure is not always extrava- 
gance. We make a misapplication of the term if in 
all instances we call these " waste." Costliness ! why 
sometimes it is that which gives the best exercise and 
expression to the soul. It is the only way in which 
loyalty and love can speak. The costliness of Mary's 
gift was the very essence of its fitness. The benefit 
had been great, the sense of gratitude was great, and 
these were symbolized by the " very precious" oint- 
ment. The best elements of our humanity are those 
which are most unselfish, and there are sentiments to 
which the ordinary routine of deeds seems inadequate. 
Therefore they seize upon some token whose very 
superfluity of costliness shall express the unselfishness 
of the feeling. Who can sneer at the graceful orna- 
13 



290 



SELECT SERMONS. 



ment which affection bestows, by calling it " useless 
cost ?" Who can say that the gift whose rich quali- 
ties typify esteem and regard is " extravagant ?" Who 
will declare that the work which the mother curiously 
embroiders on the garment of a dear child is " frivo- 
lous ?" Through these speaks a depth of sentiment, and 
works an unselfish love, which could find no other 
organ. Their propriety appears in the very sacrifice 
which they indicate. And those only will condemn 
them who would have censured Mary, and asked, " To 
what purpose is this waste ?" 

* 

II. But I proceed to remark that the question 
which constitutes the text is sometimes asked respect- 
ing certain facts of the universe and of human life. 
And here again we find a misapplication of this word 
" waste." In the system of Divine Providence there 
are things which sadly perplex us. There is what 
some may be disposed to call, what the sceptic does 
call, a waste of preparations and of hopes. How 
many seeds of things there are which never shoot into 
full development ! How many blossoms that fail of 
fruitage ! Nay, in the immensities of space, who 
knows whether, according to a theory recently much 
discussed, there are not worlds, and even systems, 
rolling in their orbits, forever barren and incomplete ? 
And thus, throughout the realms of animal life and of 
human existence ; — what a blighting of hopes, what 
foreclosing of possibilities, what perishing, as it seems 
to us, before the time ! How many babes that have 
been nourished in mothers' bosoms ; how many chil- 



THE ALABASTER BOX. 



291 



dren that have played like beams of light among the 
household, who have opened springs of affection that 
will never cease to flow, and awakened yearnings that 
cannot be at rest, — have suddenly bowed their heads, 
and lain like withered buds in the arms of death ! 
What a sense of untimeliness comes over us after the 
crash of some great catastrophe, when a crowd of 
human beings has been swept away at one stroke, — as 
though flesh and blood, and beating hearts, and lofty 
thoughts, and the warm affinities of human love, were 
only so many masses of unconscious matter scattered 
by the elements ! We are reconciled, when humanity 
ripens, to see it decay. When the wheel at the cistern 
revolves more slowly, when the golden bowl begins to 
totter in its socket, and one by one the strands of the 
silver cord untwine, we say — " The time has come. 
Let the evening shadow fall holy and gentle on the 
grey hairs, and the venerable form straighten itself for 
the night's rest of the grave." But this obliterating 
of all distinctions by the sweep of a relentless law — 
these fearful statistics of thwarted development ! It 
seems as though the arm of an Almighty Being aiming 
at his own .ends, shattered, uncaring, these crystal 
vases of our mortality, and — " to what purpose is this 
waste ?" 

Doubtless, my brethren, the arm of an Almighty 
Being is busy, and He does aim at His own ends ; but 
not without care for the interests of humanity. In the 
great plan of God there is no waste — only an economy 
broader than we can now comprehend. Look around 
now in the autumn season, and behold the tokens of de- 



292 



SELECT SERMONS. 



cay and of perishability. The flowers have vanished, 
the grass loses its sweet breath and fades, the stubble 
grows rusty in the fields, and the leaves have been 
falling from the trees, as though nature, getting ready 
for its sleep, were dropping its beads in prayer. But 
you know that in all this nothing is wasted. You 
know that not one fibre of grass, not one brown 
leaf that quivers downward to the ground, nay, not 
one undeveloped plant, not one fruitless seed of the 
summer, is utterly lost. It slips into hidden reservoirs 
of nature. It will come forth in new forms and new 
uses. 

So, had we only a vision clear and broad enough — a 
vision nearer on a parallel with God's — we should 
detect no waste anywhere under His direct control. 
So should we discover these withered human buds, 
these shattered developments, gathered up in new 
forms of life and use. 

There is waste in the world — waste of this dear 
humanity of ours — but it is not God's waste. I will 
not stop now to discuss the proposition whether what- 
ever takes place in His world is by His sanction, and 
therefore is in a sense by Him. I only say there is a 
sphere of human agency broadly distinguished from 
the immediate sphere of Divine control. A sphere of 
human responsibility, where man can promote or 
hinder if he will. And in that sphere there is waste 
— destruction not to good ends, as in Divine economy, 
but from selfish motives and to bad ends. There is 
the waste that comes by indolence, the neglect of our 
powers, the mildew and the rust of our faculties. 



THE ALABASTER BOX. 



293 



There is the waste which is wrought by human pas- 
sions — the havoc of pride, ambition and revenge. Go 
follow the track of war, with its rills of blood, and its 
drifts of bones ! Go count the slain on the damp red 
field, when the moon lights up all the shapes of agony, 
or the rain soaks into the gaping wounds ! Go where 
the hot shot falls like hail, and the batteries tremble 
with belching flame ! Call up the pale faces that wait 
for the tidings ! Look into the homes that no trium- 
phal torches will make brighter ! Say, imperial diplo- 
matists, who are now about settling " the balance of 
Europe," and are going to set your counters for some 
new game on your old blood-stained chess-board of 
politics ! will you settle the balance of crushed affec- 
tions and sore bereavements ? Can you piece together 
broken hearts, and tie up their shattered strings with 
your " red tape ?" In the parchments which you will 
exchange with your courtesies and champagne, have 
you estimated the value of desolate homesteads ; of 
bones and sinews made of stuff as good as your own, 
now bleaching in the ruts of battle-fields? Have you 
settled that balance of everlasting justice and hu- 
manity which" God finally holds in His hands, thinking 
perhaps that your crowns and sceptres in one scale 
will weigh down the heaps of slaughtered men in the 
other ? forgetting, it may be, the unmoving shadows 
of widowhood and orphanage that will brood amid 
the festal lights, and that undertone of a vast sorrow 
which will mingle with the salvoes of artillery, and 
the billowy Te Deums that shall proclaim that the 
nations are once more " at peace F 1 



294 



SELECT SERMON'S. 



And man's selfish regards and base appetites also 
make dreadful waste. Intemperance has made waste 
— man putting the cup to his neighbor's lips has made 
waste. Need I gather up the wrecks here to-night ? 
Need I paint the wo ? Could I if I would, delineate 
the waste of drunkenness ? The waste of the body, 
broken and jangling ! The waste of hope ; the waste 
of love ; the waste of faculty ; the waste of the man — 
worse than the dying of a man — I say the wasting of 
a man ! On the battle-field he may fall with his 
powers undishevelled, in the symmetry of his manhood. 
But this is worse than the dying of the man, is it not, 
0 wives ! 0 mothers ! — this burnt-out heart, and 
capacity of affection turned to loathsomeness? And 
you who deal in the agents of this wastefulness — who 
take your money for it, sprinkled with blood and 
tears — do you not know as to any form of this our 
common humanity, Christ having shed the light of His 
love upon it, and baptized it with His blood, that it is 
not for men to waste ? 

Is it not, then, soothing, to turn away from all these 
fields of human wastefulness to that sphere where 
God is at work directly, even though we fall upon 
cross-lines of darkness and transactions of mystery ? 
Where God does His work there is no waste. There 
love by its own hidden processes will secure the ends of 
love. Humanity, swept and winnowed, trampled down 
and thwarted, fading and vanishing away, is taken up 
and borne along in the scope of His great plan who 
doeth all things well. 



THE ALABASTER BOX. 



295 



III. As suggested by the circumstances of the text, 
and the train of thought pursued in this discourse, I 
wish to say a few words, by way of rebuke, concerning 
that mercenary and calculating notion of religion 
which virtually implies that anything beyond a sordid 
obedience and an arbitrary service is so much waste 
of spiritual power, and to no purpose. Now the very 
essence of religion is a spontaneous faith and love. 
How different would have been the character of 
Mary's act had she performed it as a cold ceremony, 
or counted the cost? It derives its impressiveness 
not merely from its fitness, but from the feeling which 
instinctively assumed such an expression. That out- 
poured ointment was the gushing forth of her rever- 
ence and her gratitude. 

And it is thus with all genuine excellence. It is 
thus with the true spirit of religion. That which con- 
. strains service or affection, as though anything over- 
running the letter of requirement and the boundary of 
external sanctions were a waste, is utterly alien to it. 
Its life is not in dry ceremonies and forced complian- 
ces. It is a glad consent of the will, it is a precipita- 
tion of the_ soul, it is the spontaneous offering of our 
whole hearts. Its central element is that " perfect love 
which casts out fear," and which knows nothing of 
policy and bargain. Good deeds are not the coin 
which it counts out to purchase heaven ; they are in- 
evitable expressions of its very being. Duty is wil" 
ling service, and prayer is its vital breath. As the 
sap that circulates in the veins of the flower, as the 
force that shoots in the crystal, so must the spirit of 



296 



SELECT SERMONS. 



religion be in us, a spontaneous life, impelling us up- 
ward towards our source, and quickening us to obedi- 
ence and holiness. As free as the affections which we 
render to those we love best on earth must be our re- 
gard for God and the law of God. What would we 
say if the child we had tenderly nurtured should grow 
up making a selfish calculation of our claims upon him, 
evidently professing regard for us only to obtain fur- 
ther benefits, and performing every duty with measured 
prudence as though anything more than this were 
waste ? Yet when we carry religion as a yoke, and 
render it service as a ceremony, is our conduct to- 
wards our Heavenly Father any less thankless or mer- 
cenary ? It is not our formal service he requires, but 
the free surrender of our will. He does not regard 
the quantity of the ointment, but the fragrance of the 
heart. And this He calls forth by no arbitrary claim. 
But He unveils His perfections. He lets all His good- * 
ness pass before us. He spreads abroad the loveliness 
of nature. He pours out the bounties of His daily 
providence. He concentrates His excellence in the face 
of Jesus, and displays His love in the spectacle of the 
cross. And is it not strange if this does not excite in 
us the spirit of gratitude, and move us to that spon- 
taneous motion and outflowing of love, which is the 
vital element of true religion ? Is it not strange, in the 
sight of this divine revelation of what God is and 
what He does for us, if we are formal in our devotion, 
listless in our prayers, our faith only a cold assent to 
some creed, and our service a hampered ceremony ? 
A spontaneous, glad, willing spirit of love and rever- 



THE ALABASTER BOX. 



297 



ence, of trust and devotion — this is the life of all re- 
ligion, as it is everywhere the life of all noble senti- 
ments, of all worthy action ; — as it constitutes the 
sacredness of the child's obedience, the glory of the 
patriot's sacrifice, the inspiration of heroism and labor 
like that of Paul, not counting the cost. 

My hearers, how willingly should we lay hold of any 
good work, and accept any call to duty, as an oppor- 
tunity for expressing our reverence and gratitude — in 
the very difficulty of the effort, in the very cost of the 
performance, rejoicing that we can find the most fitting 
vehicle for the expression of our sense of that good- 
ness which we can never repay. Who is there does 
not have this sense of the Divine mercy and bounty ? 
No miracle has been wrought for us as for Mary, and 
we cannot come to the visible presence of the Saviour 
to make our costly offering. But our blessings flowing 
from the constant miracle of God's providence — who 
can number them ? Each knows the experience of his 
own life. Each knows what calls especially upon him 
as a record of mercy. But common to all of us are 
the blessings of the gospel and the Redeemer. If His 
Divine word has not opened the graves of our dead, 
it has flooded them with the light of an immortal hope. 
If it has not called our kindred back to this life, it has 
revealed them to us among the realities of another. 
If it still leaves us in mortal conditions of pain, and sor- 
row, and loss, it comes with all its infinite truth, with 
all its sanctifying discipline, to guide and strengthen 
us, to lift us above the world, and to fit us for a peace- 
ful and holy state. And now for all these things what 
13* 



298 



SELECT SERMONS. 



can we render ? My brethren, nothing in the way of 
discharge or payment. Nothing but a spirit of trust 
and duty, which, like the fragrance of that ointment, 
may rise to heaven. Nay, when we shall have passed 
beyond these earthly limitations, when He by His grace 
shall bring us still nearer to himself, amid the songs 
and beatitudes of that more glorious state, — for all we 
have received, for all we may be, what more can we 
do than to breathe forth the spontaneous, willing spirit 
of a love and service akin to hers who, in speechless 
gratitude, bowed down and poured the costly spikenard 
on the Saviour's feet ! 



XVIII. 



THE INWARD SPRINGS. 

But the water that I shall give him, shall be in him a well of water 
springing up into everlasting life. John iv, 14. 

In considering the relations of man to the various 
forms of life with which he is surrounded, there is one 
thing which at first sight may seem humiliating, but 
which actually suggests his real rank and his essential 
difference. I allude to the fact that there are few con- 
spicuous bodily peculiarities which distinguish him from 
the higher animals. A specialty in the hand, and in 
the foot ; some little difference in the provisions by 
which he walks erect; some minute distinctions in other 
parts of his organism, — these are about all that entitle 
man to a separate province among the inhabitants of 
this world, if we study and regard him merely in his 
physiological aspects ; — distinctions so slight, in fact, 
that " some naturalists have included him in the monkey 
tribe, and Linnaeus places him in the same general order 
with the apes and the bats." 

And if in his bodily aspects man is thus slightly dis- 
tinguished, so is he even inferior to the brute in mere 

[295] 



300 



SELECT SERMONS. 



animal qualities—" in swiftness, in eyesight, in deli- 
cacy of touch and smell." 

Now it seems very evident that this truth, which at 
the first glance looks derogatory to humanity, viewed 
in all its suggestiveness, indicates that, for man's proper 
peculiarity, we are to look upon some other plane of 
being than the mere animal. It compels us to give 
due heed to the truism, that each creature excels in 
that in which it is most excellent. Man is not greatly 
distinguished in his bodily organism, because there is 
not his great distinction. He is not superior in 
animal faculties, because in these is not his essential 
power, nor his highest achievement. Each thing in 
its own order. The animal is only the basis of the 
human. But that which is only animal is more com- 
pletely animal. Man is less completely brute, because 
the greater energies of his being are taken up and 
used on a higher level, in the service of more true and 
noble life. 

And this is a conclusion not only of a priori reason- 
ing, but of the most common experience. The most 
stubborn materialist is compelled to acknowledge that 
what man holds in the way of distinction and suprem- 
acy, he holds by virtue of interior forces. It is the 
light of intellect, it is the strength of moral principle, 
it is boundless spiritual capacity that characterizes 
humanity, and constitutes an impassable chasm between 
it and the animal kingdom. It is the simple conscious- 
ness of these interior forces that makes man recoil 
from the idea of being confounded in rank or in 
destiny with the brute. This may be called sheer 



THE INWARD SPRINGS. 



801 



pride of human nature — but the pride itself must be 
accounted for. What is it but the instinctive con- 
sciousness of a creature who looks down, and cannot 
help looking down, from a higher platform of being. 

It is ivithin that we look for the distinctiveness of 
man. Our conceptions of humanity become most per- 
plexed, our hopes most faint, not in the field of com- 
parative anatomy where the dissecting-knife and the 
microscope lay bare the material tissues that link us 
to the animal, and weave us in one web of quivering 
flesh and blood with all this mass of sensuous being that 
creeps and climbs, that howls and chatters, and lives 
and dies — not where we trace the life-roots of our man- 
hood twined with those of brute existence and running 
down into the swamp of common nature. Not here 
does our ideal of humanity become most depressed ; 
but where the countenance is almost blank of intellec- 
tual beauty, and moral distinctions are poured away 
in dishevelled impulses, and civilizing affections are 
submerged in appetites. When the light ivithin is 
darkness, how great is that darkness ! 

Here, then, we find the dividing line which marks 
off a special sphere for human life, and indicates its 
peculiar quality in its inward springs. But before 
proceeding to speak more particularly of these, I must 
call your attention to the words of Jesus, which, upon 
the present occasion, will constitute not only the text 
of my discourse, but its central filament of thought. 
He says, in reply to the woman of Samaria, " The 
water that I shall give him, shall be in him a well of 
water springing up into everlasting life." Regarded 



302 



SELECT SERMONS. 



as a mere figure of speech, this is a very wonderful 
utterance. But it is not a mere figure of speech. It 
profoundly suggests and defines the sources and opera- 
tions of man's true life, and the adaptation of the 
religion of Jesus to his most distinctive needs and 
capacities, and in this application every word of the 
passage before us is emphatic. 

In considering these distinctive conditions in human 
life we find three characteristics : 

I. Inwardness. 
II. Spontaneousness. 
III. Durableness. 

I. I remark, then, that the springs of man's true 
and distinctive life are inward. For the purpose of 
unfolding this truth more in detail, I observe, in the 
first place, that here is the source of all that constitutes 
individuality — individual character. We have already 
seen how by this peculiarity man is marked off from 
the animal. In nature there are no generalities — no 
abstractions, I may say ; everything appears in the 
concrete, and in the special. Thus, we cannot delin- 
eate anything which shall stand for an animal in gene- 
ral, without presenting some specialty belonging to 
some animal in particular. The best we can do is to 
depict classes, and present that which marks off one 
class from another. And the specialty that distin- 
guishes man from the brute is this quality or faculty 
of an inward life ; the power of building up or un- 
folding character, or personality — something beyond 



THE INWARD SPRINGS. 



303 



the routine of mere class or the bounds of mere in" 
stinct. 

And as it is with mankind as a whole, so is it with 
each man. His individuality depends chiefly and essen- 
tially upon his inward development — upon the nature 
and disposition of the forces within him. It appears 
te be a law running throughout nature, that the higher 
the development the more special are the results. The 
lower things are in the scale of being the closer is 
their likeness one to the other. Get down among the 
animalcule, and there is hardly any organization at 
all. And so we may say that the lower a man is the 
more unorganized he is. Sometimes, though clothed 
more gorgeously than Solomon, he is little more than 
a mass of animality. He lies flat upon the surface of 
life like a sponge. But the more his being becomes 
organized the more specialties it puts forth, the more 
individual traits he exhibits. And each of these is 
the product of some inward impulse. He is known 
not only by bodily features, or the shape he has taken 
from the pressure of conditions round about him, but 
by points of mind and soul. And so the law pro- 
ceeds. The higher the inward development the higher 
the individuality ; and the loftiest attainment in a 
human life appears in the most special character and 
the most special work. The more individualities, the 
more of God's glory in humanity, — the more diversi- 
fied the forms in which men show their love to Him, 
and set forth the marvellous aptitudes of the spirit 
with which He has endowed them : — and yet, not the 
wider separation, but the profounder unity. The 



304 



SELECT SERMONS. 



grander the music that sweeps over many chords to 
melt in one vast harmony, the more complete the 
radiant fulness of the spiritual firmament in which 
one star differs from another star, but all in glory. 
The more perfect the Divine whole because of the 
special differences — the moss-tuft below, the Pleiades 
on high ; the descending snow-flake and the rolling 
globe ; each unfolding from an inward law of being, 
but only man from a conscious inwardness. 

But I observe further, that here is the spring not 
only of that individuality by which a man becomes 
best known to others, but of that consciousness in 
which he becomes best known to himself. Here is 
his most vivid certainty of being and of the great 
realities of being. For there is no assurance more 
authentic than that by which man apprehends these 
primal facts. If a man's intuitions deceive him, if his 
moral sense deceives him, how does he know that his 
physical eyesight does not deceive him ? Nay, it is a 
curious fact that one of the results of accurate inves- 
tigation is a rectifying of the deceptions of our phys- 
ical vision. By examining nature we find out that 
things are not as they appear. And the faculty by 
which we convince ourselves of any veracity in the 
reports of our senses is an inward faculty. And if 
we rely upon this in its report of that which comes 
through the senses, shall we not rely upon it when it 
reports that which comes more immediately to itself ? 
And if by the decisions of the mind we accept the 
facts of an external world, shall we not by its deci- 
sions also accept the existence of spiritual realities ? 



THE INWARD SPRINGS. 



305 



If the reports of this inward witness are not vera- 
cious, what reports are veracious ? If man does not 
know the lines of eternal rectitude, if he sees no real 
distinction between right and wrong by the help of 
conscience, then what does he know or perceive ? If 
the soul turned towards the Infinite, in its quivering 
awe, in its joyful dependence, does not discern God, 
what power in all our complex being have we, and what 
objects are real ? At least, if any truth is possible to 
man here, within, that truth verily is. Amid all the 
drifting cloud-rack of phenomena shoots up this spinal 
fact of consciousness with its perceptions and its expe- 
riences, and this one element of verity stands for 
every man — that whatever else may be or may not be 
he himself exists. Here is the fountain of all vision 
literally as well as spiritually. Things are to him 
according to what he is in himself. The world he 
perceives without is colored and stamped by this con- 
scious life-world within : — dark to thee if thy soul is 
dark ; flat and dead if thou thyself art sensual ; beau- 
tiful, transparent, revealing interior splendors if only 
he who looks mirrors in his own spirit the brightness 
of the Divine Presence, and has a vision clear and 
serene. Men sometimes underrate abstract processes 
of thought. " What is the worth," they ask, " of all 
these metaphysical niceties and refined distinctions ? 
Give us something tangible : give us the substantial 
fact, which we can see and grasp." " Nothing," they 
tell us, " has been gained by these subtile evolutions 
of thought for four thousand years. On the other 
hand, look at the victories of natural science, extend- 



306 



SELECT SERMONS. 



ing its conquests into every domain of matter, and 
harnessing its forces to the conveniences of our every- 
day life." But are not these accumulated facts them- 
selves trophies of thought ? And do not these physi- 
cal discoveries in their significance and their relations 
depend upon ideas ? 

And surely that only is true life to any man which 
actually is to him in his own inward conviction. Be 
the reports of his senses, his reason, his conscience, 
true or false, here in this reservoir of consciousness is 
the reality of all his joys and sorrows. Here is the 
staple of that mystic chain that links him to being, 
and thrills with magnetic sympathies. Here is that 
which to him is alone right and true, and which, 0 
man, you should guard with all the vigilant sanctities 
of conscience, with all the affections of the heart ; nor 
surrender it to any pressure from without, nor any 
suggestion from within, nor to the allurements of life, 
nor to the terrors of death ; but hold it as a sacred 
trust from God, and as that in which essentially you 
do live. 

Moreover, within is the spring of all radical and 
effective reformation. Inspirations, affections, desires, 
— these, and not external or conventional restrictions, 
make up the moral substance of a man. What is he 
worth who has only fenced himself in from sin, and 
stands leaning with his heart clear over and his body 
half way ? A morality that is merely patched, on, 
a virtue that is poised upon arithmetical calculations 
of policy, what is that good for? What spiritual 
benefit in lopping away one or two bad habits, while 



THE INWARD SPRINGS. 



307 



the original virus remains in the constitution. One may 
lop away all bad habits, and yet, having no positive 
spiritual life, he is only like an old stump with the 
branches broken off. " Make the tree good and his fruit 
good " — that is the premiss of all genuine reformation. 
Vitalize the heart, and that will light up the brain 
and glorify the life. Make goodness an object of 
passion cherished by the whole soul within, not an 
object of calculation estimated by the mind's eye from 
without, and then a man will live in goodness ; he 
will breathe it as he does heaven's air, not adopt it on 
the principle with which he takes stock. 

And defective, inefficient, doomed to sad disappoint- 
ment, must be all schemes for rectifying society by any 
external apparatus. Allowing due margin for the 
influence of outward conditions, we must leave a large 
scope for the play of internal forces. Republican or 
democratic institutions will not make republican or 
democratic men. Revolution does not insure progress. 
You may overturn thrones, but what proof that any- 
thing better will grow upon the soil ? The deepest 
woes of humanity are not cured by universal fraternity 
and soup-kitchens. The social millennium is not based 
on barricades. 

And here also is indicated one of the methods by 
which Providence acts upon human history. That 
Providence does act upon human history who can 
doubt ? or, if he doubts, then who dare hope ? There 
are times when there is nothing else to fall back upon 
but the final purpose and the divine power ; — times 
when, for the moment, all the triumphant tendencies 



308 



SELECT SERMONS. 



seem downward — a wild swirl of base ambitions and 
godless policies, swamping all the lines of moral 
rectitude, of warning experience and of common sense. 
Then, indeed, is it beautiful to see how God manages 
the chaos of human perversities ; to see the visible 
working of the mandate — " Let there be light and 
to notice from what unexpected quarters the light 
breaks. And how often is it that God brings light 
and order out of this chaos by touching the inward 
springs ! How often by filling the heart, by inspiring 
the thought of some man, whose hand carries the 
golden thread of the Divine purpose, and whose daunt- 
less conviction, meeting the emergencies of the hour, 
precipitates the long-hidden result. So that, under 
God, the fruition of human good ripens in the recesses 
of great, true souls. 

We see, then, the significance of the Saviour's dec- 
laration, that His great work is in man. " In him a 
well of water springing up into everlasting life." Not 
by institutions, not by forms, did Jesus seek to redeem 
the individual, or the race, but by the Spirit of Life, 
moving among the inward springs. 

II. But, in the second place, I observe that the 
springs of true and distinctive life are characterized 
by spontaneousness. The Saviour represents the spirit 
and power of His work as not only a well of water in 
us, but " springing up into everlasting life." And this 
method accords with the most effective processes, with 
the greatest and best results in human action. It is 
not by inward force solely that man is marked off 



THE INWARD SPRINGS. 



309 



from the animal classes. The animal moves by in- 
stincts and affections, and displays the working of a 
power, more or less conscious, within. It is by change 
of routine, by altered tendencies and higher planes 
of action, that man is distinguished. The animal of 
to-day is the animal of ages ago, moving in a fixed 
and limited orbit. Man alone turns short about in his 
habit and alters his direction. Man alone evinces 
spiritual growth. The dullest lump of human clay is 
not a mere float on the current of nature. The coars- 
est drudge is not a mere driving-wheel or steam- 
engine. There is more than one plane to his life. 
There are inspirations behind his work. At least in 
him there are majestic and indefinable possibilities. 
He can do more than one thing at a time. He not 
only works, but thinks. He not only makes, he 
creates. Who goes forth to his daily task without an 
ideal above his work ? Who can tell the inspirations 
that flow up and down yonder street, an ascending 
and descending gulf-stream of duty, affection and 
hope ? Who knows what resolution even now is 
quickening in the outcast's bosom, that shall turn 
away his life of shame, that shall purify the moral 
leper and give him a neiv life ? Who sees where a 
noble endeavor cancels a sordid aim, and heroic devo- 
tion tramples selfishness into the dust ? And yet men 
do these things. Men hold this capacity, this possi- 
bility of ideal inspirations, this power, under Divine 
help, of throwing off old life and putting on new. 
Something is here far grander than instinct — wider, 
boundlessly wider, than the limitations of animal life. 



310 



SELECT SEKMONS. 



And how often this new life is impelled by a single 
thought ! How often a new affection makes a new 
man ! The sordid, cowering soul turns heroic. The 
frivolous girl becomes the steadfast martyr of patience 
and ministration, transfigured by deathless love. The 
career of bounding impulses turns into an anthem 
of sacred deeds. Saul the Pharisee is changed into 
Paul the Apostle. And that which makes this new 
life is often like that which made a Paul of Saul. Not 
coming in that manifest brightness, but with that 
method— coming spontaneously, we know not how 
or whence. The greatest things in human life, the 
best things — do they not always come in that way ? 
Thought itself, if you go back to its dim, mysterious 
starting-point, what is it but an inspiration ? — at least, 
what but this is anything above routine thought — any- 
thing like creative and uplifting thought ? 

And here is the characteristic of all true human 
progress. It is not mere motion forward, but up- 
ward. It is not simply a march, but an upheaval. Is 
not this especially the distinctive method of religion ? 
Does it not go against the grain of habits, of incli- 
nations ? It is a mistake to lay down the unqualified 
proposition that all religions are cast in the mould of 
mental and moral preconceptions — so that if you know 
what a man's nationality is, what his education is, what 
the shape of his skull and the bulk of his brain, you can 
predicate his religion. You may trace some outlines 
in this way. But what is most characteristic in true 
religion, what is most wonderful, is the fact that it 
wells up right against a man's desires, his inclinations, 



THE INWARD SPRINGS. 



311 



his preconceptions. It shatters his old mouldy crust 
of habits ; it changes the currents of his thought ; it 
makes his dumb, stupified conscience speak right out, 
and speak to the purpose ; it transfigures, it regene- 
rates him. If it cannot make a small power large, it 
makes it good. If it cannot give a big brain in the 
place of a contracted one, it transmutes a man's intel- 
lect all into a divine essence of purity and love ; or 
freights it with the thunder and lightning of dauntless 
and effective energy. 

Christ did not supersede God's laws in human 
nature, He worked in accordance with them. But I 
think He struck upon this capacity in man, of being- 
changed and uplifted by a spring of spontaneous affec- 
tion and thought, when He describes the results of His 
spirit and His truth, as " springing up into everlasting 
life." We know what results He did produce in hu- 
manity. We know the great change that took place 
in the souls and the lives of His immediate followers. 
We know how John and James became fishers of men. 
We know what Peter was impelled to see and feel. 
We know with what silent, inner force, and yet for 
what a stupendous revolution, Christianity went 
abroad in the world. We know how in individuals 
and in communities, in solitary hearts and in human 
history, touching upon this spontaneous inward power, 
it was " a well of water springing up into everlasting 
life." 

III. Once more I remark, that man's true and dis- 
tinctive life is characterized by durableness. " A well 



312 



SELECT SERMONS. 



of water springing up into everlasting life." Yes, that 
is the wonderful endowment of this inward nature of 
ours. It has the capacity of an enduring, of an endless 
life. And we need something that will cause us to 
realize this durableness. Now, it is not necessary 
that I should present here the arguments for human 
immortality — so common, and yet so cogent from the 
very fact that they are common. Some there are who 
may tell us that " this pleasing hope, this fond desire," 
constitute the only basis of the dogma. " Man longs 
for immortality," they may say, " and therefore be- 
lieves it. ' The wish is father to the thought.' " But 
this does not explain whence the hope and the desire 
themselves spring. It does not explain how such a 
grand and pregnant instinct should be the only 
instinct that has no real object, and will meet with no 
gratification. I shall not occupy time in refuting the 
fiction of annihilation — for no such fact exists. Not 
a straggling film, not a quivering atom in this wealthy 
universe, ever perishes. Year by year in this human 
frame there is not the same matter, but there is the 
same individuality, the same personality, the same 
man. Yet not a flake of this perpetually circulating 
matter dies. Does, then, this personal essence, this 
primal fount of thought and consciousness, ever die ? 
Flowers may wither in the bud — they have no con- 
sciousness, no desire, no limitless capacity. But intel- 
lect folded in the bud — does that absolutely perish ? 

" So sinks the day-star in the ocean's bed, 
And yet anon repairs his drooping head, 
And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore 
Flames in the forehead of the rnorning sky." 



THE IN WARD SPRINGS. 



313 



But the starry light of intellect — does that go out in 
darkness ? The orb of thought and genius — does that 
rise nevermore? The good man's life, outrunning all 
selfish aspiration to be a balm and blessing in the 
world ; to be eyes to the blind and feet to the lame, 
a help to those who are ready to perish, and to make 
the widow's heart sing for joy — is the universe so 
populous that all that is cancelled from the roll of 
being ? The bud withers ; but no kindred bud takes 
its withering to heart, or yearns for its renewal. But 
the bud that drops from a mother's bosom, overshad- 
owed by the petals of her yearning love — tell us not 
that that has no renewal ; no blossoming in more 
genial air ; — for then you mock a deathless instinct ; 
then you would balk an inward spring that flows like 
the love of God Himself. But these common argu- 
ments for immortality need no elaboration. Let any 
man feel the ripple of his own instincts — let him listen 
to the depths of his own consciousness and hear the 
murmurs of the sea of everlasting being. I simply 
point to this as a distinctive characteristic of humanity. 
The inward springs of man's being are durable. 

And in the consciousness of that durability are the 
sources of his noblest achievements. I speak not 
of a mercenary regard to this truth, but allude to the 
fact that it appears as an unquenchable inspiration 
in his worthiest efforts. That which is eternal in 
him aids him in his loyalty to the eternal and immuta- 
ble morality. That which is to triumph over all time 
and change, help<=* him to bear up in calamity and dis- 
appointment. His assurance of an enduring end ena- 
14 



314 



SELECT SERMONS. 



bles him with clearer vision to read off the conditions 
of the present world as a system of means. Espe- 
cially in this thought of an imperishable quality in our 
humanity is he quickened to spiritual effort and to 
higher aims. Therefore it is a most momentous result 
for him to feel these inward springs, to realize the dura- 
bleness of his true life. 

For, my brethren, all possession implies duty. The 
higher the rank the higher the obligation. And this 
chiefly is why we should be solicitous in dwelling upon 
the truth of human immortality. Not taking it up mere- 
ly as a comfort, — but receiving it as an injunction, if we 
really are more than the brute, not to live merely 
as the brute ; if we are heirs of the heavenly inheri- 
tance, not to bury our talent in the earth, or live only 
by the standards of this world. 

Now these are old thoughts, but how little are they 
realized in action ; old thoughts, but how fresh and 
impressive do they become whenever we contemplate 
the immense fact of our enduring nature. 

Now it is the effect of Christ's truth and spirit 
working within us to make this consciousness fresh and 
real. He appeals to this consciousness in the simple 
.announcement of the truth of immortality. He makes 
firm and definite that which humanity yearns for and 
instinctively believes in, and which nothing but the 
revelation of this truth can satisfy. But Christ does 
more than give us the mere doctrine — the mere state- 
ment of immortality. He gives us the substance of im- 
mortality. As I said in the commencement, every word 
of the text is emphatic. The truth and spirit of Jesus 



THE INWARD SPRINGS. 



315 



in the soul of man becomes " a well of water springing 
up into everlasting life. 11 Man possesses enduring 
capacities and longings for immortality. Christ fur- 
nishes these capacities and desires with immortal ali- 
ment. He wakens these spiritual faculties, often vague 
and dormant, to vigor and execution. For we must 
remember that immortal life is not merely duration of 
existence ; it is fullness of being. It is the employ- 
ment of our largest and noblest faculties. And to 
these, I repeat, Jesus gives food and employment. In 
other words, He gives life. He gives us God to love, 
duty to do, His own Spirit for communion, His own 
ideal for aspiration. He causes us to possess and to real- 
ize eternal life now, not to regard it as merely a gift 
hereafter. In the consciousness which he kindles with- 
in us, we learn by experience that " this is eternal life, 
to know thee the true God, and Jesus Christ whom 
Thou has sent." Could the external aspects of men be- 
come transfigured by the spiritual reality that is within 
them, and of which they are a part, what a change 
would take place in all this time scenery, and how 
would that which seems so solid and enduring, so 
worthy of onr most intense effort and our chief regard, 
fall away as the mere scaffolding of the real life that 
works in and through it. Take man merely in his 
material conditions — take up the telescope and survey 
the physical universe in which he is placed — and what 
is he when the world itself in which he plants so many 
hopes and cares dwindles to an atom ? But look with 
that inward eye which lies behind the eye of sense, 
even upon the humblest and the most degraded man, and 



316 



SELECT SERMONS. 



how does all outward nature grow dim in the contrast 
of that spiritual revelation. Turn the lens of faith 
upon the relations, the affections, the mystic lights and 
shadows of a single home, and we begin to estimate 
what humanity is in the worth and capacity of its in- 
ward springs. All this we may talk about and profess 
to believe — it is only the experience of Christ's spirit 
within us that makes it real to us. He who in that 
spirit does the work of duty, feels that he is linked 
with immortal sanctities and belongs to the imperish- 
able conditions of a moral world. He who communes 
with God knows his essential relationship to God. 
He who moves impelled by these inward springs which 
flow from out the depths of the spiritual world, is 
assured not only that he is an heir of eternal life, but 
a partaker of it now. And in this assurance how 
patiently, how gloriously have men been inspired to 
do and to suffer. To them immortality has been not a 
distant reward or mere consolation in the future, but a 
present heritage and an intrinsic joy. In the world's 
many conflicts that has afforded them inward peace. 
In fiery persecutions that has cooled all torments. 
Strengthened with this might in the inner man they 
have faced all consequences. And when earth has 
grown all dark and lonely, this has given them a 
heaven in the love of God. 

Christ touching these inward springs thus enables 
us to do and to be — thus gives us clear faith to see 
eternal things, and a vital consciousness to know them 
as they are. And now, considering how all man's 
true and distinctive life is within ; how it is moved and 



THE INWARD SPRINGS. 



317 



characterized by spontaneous power ; how, enduring in 
its nature, it needs not only the assurance but the ex- 
perience of immortality, we may conceive — nay, my 
hearers, God grant that we may know by the testimony 
of our own souls ! — how, amid our thirsty ambitions, 
our feverish hopes, and the desert of this arid world- 
liness, the spirit and truth of Jesus is " in us a well of 
water springing up into everlasting life." 



XIX. 



LONELINESS. 

And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. 

John xvi, 32. 

The passage which contains these words seems to 
convey that alternation or interchange of emotions 
with which the spirit of the Saviour was moved on 
the eve of His crucifixion. At one moment we behold 
Him wrestling in the garden, and with sweat falling 
from Him as it were drops of blood, praying that the 
cup might pass from Him ; and at another, with 
serene submission we hear Him say, " The cup which 
my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" 
There is a crisis of awful agony upon the cross, when 
a shadow falls even upon His consciousness of the 
Divine presence, and through the darkness of that 
ninth hour thrills the cry, " My God, my God, why 
hast thou forsaken me ?" But the burst of anguish is 
swallowed up in the peace and victory of those final 
words, — " Father, into Thy hands I commend my 
Spirit !" And so in the verse before us, I repeat, 
there appears the same alternation of feeling. Those 

[318] 



LONELINESS. 



319 



full sympathies, those exquisite sensibilities, for a 
moment we may believe, shrunk at the thought of the 
abandonment of that coming 1 hour — of the desertion of 
friends and disciples ; leaving their master uncheered 
by human support, to meet the trial, the insult, and the 
pain. But the shrinking was only for a moment, as 
that calm sense of the Divine presence flowed into His 
soul, and rose up to meet the issue. " Behold," said 
He, " Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that 
ye shall be scattered every man to his own, and shall 
leave me alone : and yet," He adds, " I am not alone, 
because the Father is with me." 

My hearers, though it is true that God was with 
Christ in the special sense, and that His was a special 
experience ; still in these words there is significance for 
us all, in many of our earthly conditions not separated 
from the Saviour in his trials, and often called upon to 
abide in the shadow of loneliness ; each of us often 
needing to recall the same consolation, " I am not 
alone, because the Father is with me." That at times 
we must experience this sense of loneliness, and do 
need this consolation, is the truth which I propose to 
illustrate in the present discourse, 

And, in the first place, let me say that there are 
seasons when the thought comes upon us with peculiar 
force, that each of us is essentially alone — alone, I 
mean, as an individual being, as a spiritual unit in the 
universe of God. It is a striking fact, though it is 
such an obvious one, that each of us has an integral 
personality which cannot be invaded by any other. 
Each has his own life to live, his own thoughts to 



320 



SELECT SERMONS. 



think, his own work to do, his own destiny to fulfil. 
And, certainly, this is a very profitable fact for us to 
reflect upon, especially in an age like this when there 
are so many influences drawing man away from the 
centre of his own soul into the whirl of outside reali- 
ties. The great interests of the time are involved 
with external facts and achievements. Men are busy 
studying the phenomena, and detecting the uses, of the 
material world. The seals of nature are broken, and 
her most subtile secrets extorted. The earth gives up 
its ancient treasures — the electric force works in har- 
ness — and from the watch-towers of science, man, push- 
ing his out-look beyond the horizon of his own world, 
pierces ever deeper into the unfathomed recesses of 
space. The idea also of humanity as a consolidated 
whole, the theories and enterprises of social advance- 
ment — the movement of great masses — the glitter of 
perpetual excitement ; these things, so characteristic of 
our days, are not in all points favorable to that per- 
sonal consciousness, that inward reference and solici- 
tude, which have marked other men and other times. 
Of course either extreme is unhealthy ; and there are 
occasions when, more than anything else, one needs to 
turn from mental solitude to the relations and activ- 
ities of life. But, with all this, it is essential that we 
should realize our individuality, and know those limits 
within which we stand isolated and alone — that inte- 
rior circle of our own spiritual substance and posses- 
sion, our own responsibility, our own prior and origi- 
nal relation to God. And the very terms in which I 
now state this fact, show how different this sense of 



LONELINESS. 321 

personality is from mere egotism, or selfishness. Self- 
ishness does not arise from a deep knowledge of self, 
but from ignorance of our own nature and position. 
The selfish man is intensely conscious of the relations 
of others to himself. He consorts with them and uses 
them for his own ends ; and in this way, indeed, he 
may be said to make an intense self-reference. He 
pours out his selfishness upon all things, and colors 
and warps all things by it. But he fails to ask, What 
this self is that spreads out so largely, and claims so 
much ? What are its obligations as well as its de- 
mands ? What is it bound to do to others as well as 
to receive ? When we cultivate our own self-conscious- 
ness enough to really know our rights, we shall in the 
same act of perception recognize our duties ; and the 
more definite the outlines of our special personality, 
the more palpable the reciprocal network which con- 
nects us with those without. Indeed, if one wishes to 
unlearn selfishness, I should say, let him go apart and 
stand alone by himself. It is in crowds, in the eager 
rush and rivalry of the market and the street, that one 
grows more intensely selfish. Let the man who has 
lived unjustly or imperiously towards others ; reckless 
of their welfare, or extorting their service ; let him go 
apart into the solitude of still woods or mountains, or 
wherever there comes upon him the sense of vastness 
and silent depth in nature. Let him look out from 
his window in the great city, when the long arteries 
of the streets throb with slackened motion, and the 
places of his daily toil and interest dwindle into 
shadow, while the immensity of midnight glitters wide 
14* 



322 



SELECT SERMOXS, 



over all ; or let him in the stillness of his own cham- 
ber grow conscious of his own soul, as all the realities 
of business or pleasure ebb away and leave him only 
with that ; — I say, let any man whose life is but a game 
for his own passions, or a mart for his shrewd trade, 
pass into solitary conditions like these, and their sug- 
gestions will teach him a better lesson. They will 
teach him that he cannot live by himself or for himself 
alone, and that he clings by innumerable dependencies 
to others ; that this broad system of things is not to 
be interpreted by the designs of a few ; and that there 
is nothing so dislocated and presumptuous as a selfish 
soul. 

I repeat, then, it is well for a man to become self- 
conscious, to become intensely aware of his individual- 
ity and of his essential solitariness in the universe. 
But on the other hand, this consciousness is not with- 
out its liabilities and its need — its need of the very 
consideration presented in the text, " I am not alone, 
for the Father is with me." 

Sometimes this consciousness of individuality may 
appear in intellectual excess. A man may reason him- 
self into the conception that his own mind is one and 
the same in his fellow-men, and is the solitary intelli- 
gence in the universe. Either he may think that he 
is the only designer and inventor in this entire sphere 
of being, and that this entire array of forms and forces 
is merely the product of blind necessities, and that out- 
side this region of matter there is nothing ; or he may 
conclude that he is a portion and expression of the 
indivisible essence, the pantheistic spirit that fills, 



LONELINESS. 



323 



sustains and evolves the great whole of things. He 
may fall into the notion that God first becomes con- 
scious in man ; or that Deity is but the colossal spec- 
tre, a projected image on the screen of the universe, of 
the ideals and the possibilities of humanity. He may 
come to think that it is only the unity of his own life 
that works in the thoughts of men and unrolls through 
the epochs of history ; that it is only the motion of 
his own intelligence that grows in plants, and flows in 
seas, and shivers in clustering constellations. 

Now, to this proud solitariness of the intellect, to 
this awful self-idolatry generated from the cold mists 
of scientific speculation, or from the subjective conceits 
of the soul, it needs that there should come the great 
fact that the human spirit is not alone ; that it lives 
and moves and has its being by an Infinite Spirit, to 
the independence of which, to the illimitability of which, 
man's own self-consciousness bears witness. His own 
moral nature, his own free-will, is evidence of a moral 
intelligence and will above and behind the material 
universe ; and his own consciousness of limitation and 
defect is an intuitive recognition of that unbounded 
and perfect One who alone is the Origin, the Life, the 
Controller, of all. Thus even reason rebukes this in- 
tellectual conceit of loneliness, and responds to the 
affirmation of the text. How much more does the 
moral nature of man, in this startling suggestion of 
spiritual solitude, cry out for the Father ! That which 
proud Atheistic philosophy in its strength cannot main- 
tain, this in its weakness recoils from. Among these 
immensities of being, these untiring, fatal wheels, it 



324 



SELECT SERM0X8. 



rejoices in the consciousness, "I am not alone, for the 
Father is with me." 

Again, this sense of personal loneliness may run 
into excess in the feeling of individual conscience — in 
the conception of private responsibility. This may not 
be a very common form of error in our day, for reasons 
which I have already given existing in the influences 
of the age. As I have already remarked, we are more 
liable to be drawn away from this consciousness of our 
own souls and of personal obligation by the immense 
externality of the interests abounding in our time. 
But there is such a fact as morbid self-consciousness, 
perplexing us with too exclusive introspection. A man 
may feel not only that he has much to do, but as though 
all the ability to do it was to come from his own re- 
sources. The calls of duty, the sense of deficiency, 
the front of thick coming trials, may seem too much 
for him, so that he is overshadowed with a lonely dis- 
pair. He finds himself, as it were, endeavoring to lift 
his own weight, and to generate new power in the ex- 
hausted reservoirs of his own soul. He feels the need 
of moral effort, but with every effort he makes he 
sinks still deeper, and thus keeps sharpening the stings 
of self-reproach. But when thus tormented with this 
spiritual casuistry, troubled by these fears and fight- 
ings within, how blessed is the thought — " I am not 
alone, for the Father is with me ! " To meet the trials 
and to achieve the work of life, two agencies must be 
employed. We need not only the power of effort, but 
the help of prayer — -we need not only the prompting 
of our duty, but an infusion from God, and in our 



LONELINESS. 



325 



faithful though incomplete endeavor, may look away 
from our own short-comings to His considerate mercy. 

Moreover, this sense of personal loneliness must 
spring up in the souls of those who in their guilt and 
their shame feel themselves outcast and abandoned 
among their fellow-men. Oppressive and dreary in- 
deed must be the solitude of such a being, causing 
him to realize the essential loneliness of man by the 
stopping of those channels of intercourse which have 
linked him to others. The world generally, perhaps 
justly, perhaps unduly, has condemned him and is sus- 
picious of him. He dare not trust to the charity of 
nobler natures which would act for him, and he finds 
that in proportion as men are bad and mean them- 
selves, their censoriousness is intensified. Worse than 
all the rest, he is conscious of his own vileness. If 
there is a desert around him, lowering with gloom 
and covered with desolation, on whose rank ground 
no green thing grows, and through whose heaps of 
drifted bones the bleak wind sighs, while the lights 
of social privilege glimmer far off ; he feels that he 
himself has made that desert — that out of the waste 
of his own life have spread abroad this desertion 
and scorn. An yet even above him is there not a 
clear, blue heaven ? Does not the common light 
visit him, and the soft air wrap him about, by ex- 
pressions of outward beneficence, telling him that 
he is not utterly alone, because the Father is with 
him ? Do no faded lines of memory come out in his 
mind, that earlier influences engraved there, and which 
bear record of a nearer mercy than nature can dis- 



326 



SELECT SERMONS. 



close ; — scraps of words spoken to the penitent thief 
or the weeping Magdalene ; recollections of that tender 
story of the Prodigal, who from among the husks and 
the swine groped his way back, and found himself in 
the open arms of his father ? Oh ! the first point of res- 
toration, without which the guilty soul would be deso- 
late indeed, is such a thought of God as this. To feel 
utterly alone even in the deepest guilt, is an excess of 
self-consciousness. Son of crime, stained all over with 
hideous proofs of sin ! Daughter of shame, in the deep- 
est degradation of your discrowned womanhood ! 
there is warrant in the gospel to say even to thee, to 
thee under the heaviest ban of social exclusion, under 
the thickest folds of vice and scales of moral leprosy, 
<l thou art not alone, because the Father is with thee." 

We see, then, how the consolation of the text is fitted 
to those who, upon any occasion, feel their essential 
loneliness as individuals, as personal units in the world. 
But in the next place I proceed to say, that there are 
occasions when, without any special self-reference, men 
feel themselves alone, and, therefore, need this conso- 
lation. 

For instance, there is the loneliness which, at times, 
will be felt by hini who is loyal to principle. It is 
not only true that a man must form his own convic- 
tions for himself, but if they are worthy of being called 
" convictions" he must stand by them and maintain them 
for himself. And it is not yet so late in the day that 
one, if he- is thus devoted to principle, may not find 
himself deserted by the popular tide, misinterpreted 
by friends as well as by foes, and as to any strengthen- 



LONELINESS. 



327 



ing sympathy, left alone. Indeed, I hardly think that 
the conditions of following Jesus, the conditions of 
following righteousness and truth, are only obsolete 
possibilities. I can conceive that there may be cases, 
even now, when in faithfulness to this discipleship a 
a man must leave father and mother, and houses and 
lands. Nay, let one take up a single virtue, a single 
grace of Christianity, and try to carry it straight 
through every temptation and over every hindrance, and 
see how often it would be like the carrying of a cross. 
Take truth in speech, or sincerity of heart in action, 
and cling to it through the maze of traffic and of com- 
pliment, through all the conventionalisms and frowns 
and favors of the world. Take a profession of Chris- 
tianity that bases itself upon the life of faith rather 
than of sight, and hold it consistently, feeding it from 
inner fountains in the soul, through thick allure- 
ments and daily cares. Take meekness, purity, charity, 
moral courage, and hold to these everywhere, upon all 
occasions, and see how often this must be a lonely 
effort, throwing you back upon the poise of your own 
soul, and leaving you this single but all-sufficient con- 
solation — " I am not alone, because the Father is with 
me." 

But what a great thing it is thus to stand alone, 
having this consolation ! Is there any posture which 
man can assume, so grand and impressive as when he 
sinks back upon his convictions of duty and leans 
upon God ? " Here stand I," said Luther ; " I cannot 
otherwise ; God help me I" Surrounded there by the 
power and the pomp of the world, he seemed to be 



328 



SELECT SERMONS. 



alone. But emperors, princes, priests, dignitaries, were 
not so powerful as the solitary monk, for, fresh from 
the struggle and assurance of earnest prayer, he knew 
that he was not alone because the Father was with, 
him. 

But without such a conviction as this in the day of 
trial, how sad, how hopeless is the human heart. Then 
there is no stability, no true moral courage. Then a 
man may be a schemer, a shuffler, a trimmer, a piece 
of human goods marketable and having a price. But 
he cannot have that strength and persistence which 
consists only with the conviction of the right, and of 
God's help that is always with the right. 

Once more I observe, that in the profoundest expe- 
riences of life we must be alone. There are occasions 
in which however intensely our friends may feel for us 
they cannot feel in our stead, and we must strive or 
endure in our solitary individuality. The very deep- 
est realities of our being are those with which no 
stranger and no friend can intermeddle. They are 
memories, hopes, fears, joys, sorrows, which have 
passed into our souls and become parts of ourselves. 

As we look out upon the crowded streets, it is affect- 
ing to think how each man in that mingled mass is 
working out and must work out the problem of life 
alone ; working it out for good or for evil ; working 
it out in results that leave their deposits in the strata 
of his substantial being. Is not the most humble, nay, 
the most despised man, interesting to you, when you 
regard him as a moral agent working out a spiritual 
destiny ? — when you think of the sins, and joys, and 



LONELINESS. 



329 



griefs, that constitute the warp and woof of his in- 
most personality ? These are the exclusive and pecu- 
liar experiences of life ; but there are experiences 
common to us all in which men likewise find them- 
selves alone. 

There is the time of sickness, when in weakness and 
pain one must lie through long sleepless nights ; when 
the dearest friend has sunk in weariness, and the eyes 
of the watcher are heavy ; when the dreams of fever 
have melted away, leaving the mind with an intense 
realization of solitude ; when there is a strange still- 
ness in the house, and the surges of sound have died 
away in the streets, and the night-shadows scarcely 
broken by the dim light weave a sombre embroidery 
on the wall, and the tick of the clock echoes as it 
were in eternity. Then, when all the links that bind 
us to others are loosened and still, and the soul feels 
the frailty of the tabernacle in which it abides ; then, 
in that intense spiritual consciousness, how blessed is 
the thought — " In my weakness and my solitude I am 
lorne up in the arms of Infinite Love. Through the 
silence and shadow of the night-watches they support 
me, and will not faint or grow weary, but I may rest 
assured of that Divine protection and ready help. I 
am not alone, because the Father is with me." 

And there is the loneliness of bereavement. Though 
many may share it with us ; though the flow of sym- 
pathy may be rich and full, nevertheless under that 
stroke each heart must feel its own bitterness. The 
father cannot mourn as the mother mourns. She has 
felt even a nearer and more mysterious relationship to 



330 



SELECT SERMONS. 



the departed child whose gentle pressure lies still 
warm upon her heart. And the sympathy of friends 
cannot be as our own grief — it cannot enter into the 
most intimate recesses, or take hold of the deep sub- 
stance of our sorrow. It ought not to be so ; for each, 
having his own trials, must in some degree have his 
limitation in sharing the trials of others. Nor does 
a keen bereavement ever entirely lose its sharpness. 
The shadow never completely passes away. We are 
so much the lonelier for the absence of those who have 
vanished from our side as we walk the earth. And 
though our sense of spiritual nearness and reunion 
may habitually be vivid and strong as time passes on. 
and the ranks of those who have lived with us and 
loved us grow thinner and thinner, a mournful con- 
sciousness of solitude will take possession of us. And 
then it is that we need the assurance of Christian 
trust and faith, that we are not alone, because the 
Father is with us and with them ; and that we and 
they live in the same Presence and are gathered up in 
the same mercy. 

There is still another experience concerning which, 
with more emphasis than of all the rest, we can say 
that it must be endured alone. We must die alone. 
There is a moment in which no kindly wish, no out- 
stretched hand, can enter into the world of our con- 
sciousness from which all earthly perceptions are 
fading away. To the very verge of the stream our 
friends may accompany us, they may bend over us, they 
may cling to us there ; but that one long wave from 
the sea of eternity washes up to the lips, sweeps us 



LONELINESS. 



331 



from the shore, and we go forth alone ! In that un- 
tried and utter solitude, then, what can there be for us 
but the pulsation of that assurance — " I am not alone, 
because the Father is with me !" 

Having thus considered these conditions and expe- 
riences of human life, which however common can 
never lose their interest, and must one day be real for 
us, permit me, in conclusion, to ask — nay, rather let 
each one put the practical, searching question to him- 
self — " Am I ready to be alone ?" And " Can I in 
those moments of solitary consciousness look up, in the 
full conviction expressed in the words of the text ?" 

And let us be thankful for the life and example of 
him who, passing through the conditions and expe- 
riences of our common humanity, must needs pass 
under the shadow of loneliness, and who, as we partake 
of His spirit, enables us to partake of his conscious- 
ness and thus to say — " I am not alone, because the 
Father is with me." 



XX 



OVERCOMING THE WORLD. 

But be of good cheer ■ I have overcome the world. John xvt, 33. 

The most difficult problem presented to the human 
mind — the problem of evil — will probably never be 
solved by the human intellect in its present conditions. 
But in all the discussion that grows out of it, one 
point is generally conceded. It is acknowledged that 
evil has its uses. Whatever be the true theory of its 
origin ; whether it be considered as an element or- 
dained of God, or whether it exists as a necessity in 
things, it is so adjusted to the present system of the 
world, or the present system of the world is so adjust- 
ed to it, that the noblest results which man achieves 
are achieved in contact with it. Without indulging 
in speculations upon what humanity might be, but 
taking humanity as it is, it is evident that a world of 
unbroken harmony would be a world of perpetual 
inactivity. There would be nothing prompting man 
to endeavor. There would be no intellectual and 
moral growth — no original personality. These pre- 
suppose effort and resistance. Desire springs up in 

[332] 



OVERCOMING THE WORLD. 



333 



limitation. Work is the process of an uncompleted 
ideal. Temptation is the furnace where mere inno- 
cence is refined into virtue. In short, in one way or 
another, evil wakes up all our faculties to positive 
development, and furnishes the occasions for human 
history. 

Let our speculations, then, upon the problem of evil 
be as vexatious or as ingenious as they may, the simple 
fact being this — that our most enduring good comes 
from its provocation, and that this is the only conceiv- 
able way of achieving that good — it is well that man 
is placed in no sphere of .ease and rest, but in a world 
where all he gains must be gained by effort ; where 
his chief blessedness ensues from vanquishing the 
obstacles to that blessedness. Evidently, he has been 
set in the world to overcome the world ; and in this 
conflict and this victory he unfolds the grandest 
features of his humanity. 

For instance, the long process of material civiliza- 
tion — what is that but overcoming the world ? Oh, 
what inspiration and grandeur in the development of 
that process ! Survey the world not as an end in it- 
self, but as an instrument — view it as the agent in a 
grand scheme — and the wisdom and benevolence of 
God are as manifest in what may be called its " de- 
ficiencies" and " imperfections," as in its appointments. 
Are there any who wonder why the world was not 
made a garden, strewn with gratifications for every 
want, and bathed in perpetual summer? Do they 
wander back to some " golden age," whose mellow 
light retreats as they recede ; always hovering in the 



334 



SELECT SERMONS. 



dim horizon of the past — never falling within the cir- 
cumference of the present ? an age when the earth 
yielded its fruits without the cost of sweat or tears, 
and perpetual bliss lingered within its sphere ; when 
beauty knew no decay, and health bloomed to the 
last, and death came as a visible transfiguration ? 
But with such a condition the noblest possibilities of 
our humanity could not coincide. The golden age is 
not in the past, but in the future ; not in the origin of 
human experience, but in its consummate flower ; not 
opening in Eden, but out from Gethsemane. Is not 
the goodness of God as manifest in what the earth 
does not spontaneously produce, as in those things 
which are furnished immediately to our hands ? Are 
not the morning want and the noontide weariness, yes, 
even poverty, nakedness, and hunger, the springs of 
incalculable blessings ? How has the Infinite Father 
manifested His glory by sending man, not to repose 
upon the bosom of nature, but to conquer its obstacles 
and beat down its limitations. The earth was glori- 
ous " when the morning stars sang together" over it ; 
glorious in its uncultivated luxuriance, dripping with 
primeval dew. But how much more glorious in its 
latent capabilities, in that which it did not yield spon- 
taneously, but which it was to surrender to human 
effort — the riches hidden in the grain of the oak, and 
the bowels of the rock ! The difference between the 
aboriginal world and the world civilized — between 
the wildness of nature and the magnificent city, the 
power of mechanism, the splendor of art, the telegraph, 
the printing-press, the steam-engine, the dome of 



OVERCOMING THE WORLD. 



385 



justice, the cathedral's spire — illustrates the inspiration 
born of want and endeavor. Or, for a single symbol 
of man's victory over the material world, take the 
ship which rides the seas and circumnavigates the 
globe. Consider the naked savage, weaponless, limit- 
ed, challenged by all the elements, and then look at 
this mysterious vehicle of flame and iron, with the 
light of changing constellations flickering on its sails, 
and all the climates painted on its hull. 

Or take the conquests of man in the intellectual 
world. See how all the glory of his achievement in 
this sphere springs from the incitement of limitation 
and difficulty. In the domains of matter and of mind 
knowledge is shut up as in a sealed book. Every 
great fact is torn open with effort, and truth unfolds 
itself leaf by leaf. In painful meditation men feel the 
quickening of a new thought. Only to the eyes of the 
midnight watcher docs the starry plenitude open a 
grander series. Limitation and difficulty meet us in 
all our researches. Yet these are the provocatives of 
research and the prophecies of something greater to 
be known. " When I arrive at a difficulty that seems 
insurmountable," said a certain philosopher, " I always 
feel that I am on the eve of a great discovery." Thus 
has man been inspired to intellectual conquest, and in 
far-extended fields of knowledge he plants the signals 
of his success. 

Man's grandest work, then, is overcoming the world, 
and the struggle by which he achieves this work is 
rendered possible only by the pressure of antagonistic 
forces. We cannot conceive of any such victory in a 



336 



SELECT SERMONS. 



system of things where all our material wants should 
be spontaneously gratified, and where all truth lay 
upon the surface. 

But now I proceed to ask, is there not a more solemn 
and arduous conflict for man than any that he finds in 
the material world about him, or in the realm of intel- 
lectual effort ? And let the origin or the purpose of evil 
be what it ma}^, does it not, in the conflict to which 
I now allude, constitute the very condition of his 
victory ? At least, here is the practical interpretation 
of the problem. You have been perplexing yourself, 
and perplexing others, it may be, with this question 
of " evil," wondering why it should be here to mar the 
harmonies of God's universe. And you may do as 
thousands before you have done — continue to speculate 
until your head grows grey with thought and your 
heart heavy with sorrow ; until, like them, you too 
drift away into the great mystery, leaving the mighty 
problem undetermined. Nevertheless, one thing is 
certain — evil, whether it tempts or limits, whether it 
incites disobedience, or springs up in gloomy doubts — 
evil is the world's form of antagonism to the highest 
interests of the human soul ; and whatever else we 
may do concerning it, we are summoned to grapple 
with it and to conquer it, to fight the great moral 
battle ; achieving at last the sovereignty of virtue 
and the lofty serenity of faith. This is the profound- 
est method of overcoming the world : this is the sig- 
nificance of the phrase as Christ used it, when He said 
to His disciples, " Be of good cheer ; I have overcome 
the world." 



OVERCOMING THE WORLD. 337 

And, in calling your attention to this method of 
victory over the world, I must express my fear that a 
great many do not look upon life and its experiences 
in this light at all — that is, in the light of a moral 
conflict against antagonistic forces of sin and unbelief. 
To how many is this a fresh and vivid truth — that 
God has not set man in this sphere of existence merely 
for indulgence or for any temporary end, but for 
interests which stretch far beyond the limits of the 
grave ? He is here to do the life-service of duty, 
whatever the hindrance ; if the right demands, to suf- 
fer, and to sacrifice inclination and self-will. He is to 
carry on this like any other conflict, not by running 
from the field, but by going bravely into it — not by 
rejecting things around him, but by using them. In 
other words, he is to fulfil the appointed end of life — 
not by escaping from the world, nor by neglecting the 
good that is in it, but by employing this in its noblest 
possibilities, and resisting all the forms of evil. As 
he is thrown in contact with material antagonisms, in 
order that thus may be developed the energies of labor 
and the results of civilization ; as he is obliged to 
force the seals of knowledge, in order that he may en- 
large the scope of intellectual power ; so is he placed 
in contact with the suggestions of doubt and sin, in 
order that, by resistance to these and by victory over 
them, he may, in the most radical sense, overcome the 
world. Still further I observe, that, in this moral 
sense, man is to overcome the world in two phases. 
He is to overcome it in its temptations and in its limit- 
ations. I propose to dwell upon each of these points. 
15 



838 



SELECT SERMONS. 



I. We must overcome the world in its temptations. 
It has the better of us so long as it can seduce, or 
terrify us into any impure desire or wicked deed. The 
point of our victory over it is in the supremacy of holy 
principles and affections in our hearts bringing every 
proposition to their test. That man is victorious over 
the world who wields without surrender the sceptre of 
God's law, and from whom the world by no expedient 
can wrest that sceptre. Now, in conducting this as- 
sault, the world has various methods and employs 
manv agents. Thus it finds some of its most success- 
ful allies in the appetites. Countless are the hosts 
who have yielded to the suggestion of evil lusts. Con- 
scripts drawn by God to fight the battle of life and to 
scale Alpine heights of duty, they either know not or 
heed not the summons, but leap without restraint to 
gratification, or lie basking in the sunshine of volup- 
tuous ease. How many do we see every day who have 
thus yielded to the world without a struggle. Fools 
of appetite ! Floats on the stream of impulse ! De- 
serters from the campaign to which God has called 
them! How often they drop by the wayside, bruised 
and torn, victims of their own passions, cast into the 
fire and the water by the devil within them. Spirits 
made a little lower than the angels, fallen much lower 
than the brute. Immortal souls soaked into the flesh, 
and sharing the corruption of the bones. Dying, it 
may be, in the streets, and as the waves of death roll 
over them, lifting dim eyes to the starry immensity 
above them, unconscious that it is more limited than 
their destiny, and that those lights are glimmering 



OVERCOMING THE WORLD. 



339 



from eternal shores, towards which they drift. Have 
you not often had your attention arrested by some 
drunkard reeling by you, or collapsing in the kennel ? 
— a human Bedlam, in whom appetite has forced the 
wards of reason, and let loose the demon or the fool. 
Perhaps this has been for you merely an amusing 
spectacle ; you have listened curiously to his incon- 
gruous chattering, or laughed at his antics. It may 
be, however, that some feeling of pity has subdued this 
levity, and you have detected that which made it a 
very sad and solemn sight — -just as when a coffin is 
carried through a crowded street, and sheds upon the 
glittering procession of life the shadow of its moral. 
So you have caught a glimpse of that poor drunkard's 
soul. You have seen the beauty of his abused man- 
hood, the funeral train of his dead possibilities. Per- 
haps he is a " gentlemanly" drunkard, and you behold 
not only good clothes, but noble faculties and fine 
culture mixed with fantastic beastliness and the lees 
of debauchery. Now, if you should find some statue, 
of beautiful proportions and wondrous inspiration, 
lying upon its face shattered, disfigured, wedged 
in the mire, you would mourn over the desecration. 
You would say, " What lost wealth ! What wast- 
ed labor ! Into this block of marble genius wrought 
its energies and breathed its very soul, and now it 
lies thus, thrown down and trampled upon ! " Ah ! 
my friends, God wrought the living statue there, that 
has tumbled from its pedestal. He breathed into 
it of his own nature. He sent it into the world 
not to be as a mere statue, a dumb and motionless 



340 



SELECT SERMONS. 



shape ; but to be a growing and exhaustless force. He 
created it not to be as the animal, the bond slave of 
the flesh, but to be a nobleman of a spirit. The 
world was spread out around him to be seized and 
conquered. Realms of infinite* truth burst open above 
him, inviting him to tread those shining coasts along 
which Newton dropped his plummet, and Herschel 
sailed, — a Columbus of the skies. Springs of true en- 
joyment, elements of power — the possibilities that 
await every soul born into the world — crowded on 
his right hand and his left. The prerogative assigned 
him was in every way, in every department of thought 
and action, to overcome the world. But as the ground, 
work and significance of all other victories, he was 
required to contend with the forces that warred against 
himself — against his own spiritual nature. He was 
sent into the lists of life to fight with lance and 
shield. The world challenged him through his appe- 
tites. He went down before them. They defaced his 
heraldry, they tore off his coronet, they have beaten 
and trampled him into the brutal mass you see before 
you. There are others more propped and disguised by 
circumstances, but none the less overcome by the 
world. 

Another element in our nature to which temptation 
addresses itself is the sentiment of self-regard. There 
are thousands who are not the slaves of vice ; who are 
guilty of no gross, overt sin ; but through avenues of 
aspiration and subtle windings of motive, the world 
has made its way to their hearts. It pleads with their 
vanity. It provokes the lust of fame. It works in 



OVERCOMING THE WORLD. 



341 



the schemes of the mart, in the lists of ambition, in 
the circle of fashion. According to the compass of 
the soul which it attacks, so are its devices narrow or 
sublime. Sometimes the heart is won by the paltriest 
proffers ; sometimes it besieges a man's soul for a long 
while in vain, until by and by it touches some secret 
spring and all that stubborn probity gives way. Oh ! 
this is a most fearful fact for each of us to think of ; 
the fact that in every heart there is some such secret 
spring that would be weak at the touch of temptation, 
and that is liable to be assailed. Fearful and yet 
salutary to think of ; for the thought may serve to 
keep our moral nature braced. It warns us that we 
can never stand at ease, or lie down on this field of 
life, without sentinels of watchfulness and camp-fires 
of prayer. Sometimes the world's form of temptation 
assumes a truly royal attitude. To some lofty spirit 
that would stoop to no mean quarry, it promises all the 
kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, if that 
spirit will only dethrone God and worship it. It 
offers honors of place, and majesties of power, and the 
homage of the multitude. Nowhere is its influence so 
fearfully displayed as when it attacks a nature enrich- 
ed with large gifts and capabilities, yet containing no 
vital germ of virtue, and bound by no sanction of 
religion, and which with all its splendor of movement 
gravitates to mere self-interest. A man like this may 
walk long in the path of rectitude and brush away 
common snares with his feet. But the moment he en- 
counters something that touches the leading purpose 
of his soul, temptation springs upon him and Achilles 



342 



SELECT SERMONS. 



is wounded in the heel. The statesman, the philan- 
thropist, the severe patriot, is taken captive by " am- 
bition, the last infirmity of noble minds." Is not this 
a very melancholy spectacle ? A man standing in 
some high place of intellect and honor, splendid as ever 
in the brain, but on one side of him — the moral side 
— stricken clear down with paralysis ! A man saturat- 
ed with the finest culture, with the most delicate sensi- 
bilities playing in his nature, with the escutcheon of 
pride in eye and forehead, flushed with the heraldry 
of genius, scorning the temptations of the flesh, beat- 
ing upward like an eagle towards some lofty point ; 
yet carrying a hard, cold, selfish heart, and marked as 
a deserter from the right. When some great occasion 
breaks, and imperilled justice calls to him from the 
ground, and far above all mean interests and clanging 
factions the voice of duty summons him like the very 
trump of God, he vacillates, he takes up the lance 
droopingly, he lets the ark of the righteous cause tot- 
ter, he cowers before the dagon of the hour, he falls 
away from the good cause, he betrays it, nay, he be- 
comes hot against it ; and the words of the man that 
might have been tones of regeneration and of victory, 
clatter upon our ears like " thirty pieces of silver." 

Ah ! a man may chain his appetites, and hold the 
realm of knowledge within the cincture of his brain, 
and yet in the saddest aspect of all be overcome by 
the world. And again I say, how startling is the fact 
that one may hold on steadfastly up to a particular 
point, and there all gives way. 0 my brother man, 
meaning to live the life of duty, the life of religion ! 



OVERCOMING THE WORLD. 



343 



the world is a mighty antagonist, subtle as it is strong ; 
more to be dreaded in its whispers to the heart's 
secret incli nation than in gross shapes of evil. And 
let me say to you that it is a great thing in this re- 
spect to overcome the world. It is a great thing by 
God's help and your own effort to keep it in its place, 
and say to its eager pressure, " Thus far and no 
farther." A great thing, 0 merchant ! to carry the clue 
of rectitude through the labyrinths of traffic, and to feel 
the woof of eternal sanctions crossing the warp of 
daily interests. A great thing, 0 politician ! to with- 
stand the fickle teasings of popularity, to scorn the 
palatable lie, and keep God's signet upon your con- 
science. A great thing, 0 man ! whatever your con- 
dition, to resist the appeals of envy and revenge, of 
avarice and pleasure, and to feel that your life has 
higher ends than these. Strenuous must be the en- 
deavor but proportionally blest is the victory of him 
who in all these issues overcomes the world. 

There is one other strong temptation that I will 
specify, and that is fear of the world. " The fear of 
man bringeth a snare." There are those who, perhaps, 
can resist allurements, and yet they are not able to 
withstand threats and frowns. It may be that they 
will not yield to any positive wrong, — but they will 
withhold some good, or repress some truth, or smother 
some honest conviction, dreading the consequences. 
A potent spell is laid upon the souls of some men by 
the question, " What will they say ?" Many a heart 
has been so scared by the fear of ridicule as to conceal 
and even drive away its religious convictions. Many 



344 



SELECT SERMONS. 



a foot has halted in the good cause, and retreated 
from it, because of the sacrifice. This was the tempta- 
tion which the apostles had to encounter, though in 
forms more terrible than we know ; scoffs, stripes, im- 
prisonment, crucifixion, stood before them, to intimi- 
date them and to forbid their preaching Christ. But 
His spirit was sufficient for them. They had witness- 
ed His example. They had heard his declaration, 
" Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world," and 
remembering this they also were enabled to overcome 
it. And catching the same spirit, we too may over- 
come it in all its forms of temptation — whether it 
addresses our appetites, our aspirations, or our fears. 

II. But the world meets us not only with tempta- 
tions but with limitations ; and we are called upon to 
overcome it by endurance, as well as with resistance. 
Not always soliciting our impulses, not always alarm- 
ing our fears, it sometimes vanquishes us by taking or 
by withholding something from us. Thus it over- 
comes us by disappointment. We have sought pros- 
perity and have not found it ; we have tried for happi- 
ness, but in vain. Our utmost diligence has failed to 
secure success. Our hearts have garnered treasures 
that have wasted away, leaving them empty and deso- 
late. We have accumulated wealth, but misfortune has 
scattered it to the winds ; or we retain it, but in con- 
nection with a diseased body and a broken spirit. We 
have striven for fame, and our reputation is blasted ; 1 
we have gained it, but at the cost of a wounded con- 
science. We have relied upon friendship, and it has 



OVERCOMING- THE WORLD. 



345 



deceived us ; we have loved, but those we loved are 
dust. And it may be with all this there falls upon us 
a great and gloomy doubt. We question whether there 
is any real good. At least the good we expected has 
not been attained, or if good has been attained it is 
not what we expected. And as we thus muse upon 
the deceitfulness of human calculations, and the little 
value of all we strive for, having no religious trust, we 
are disposed to write "vanity of vanities" upon all 
things, and do not see that all is not vanity. And so 
we are overcome by the defeats and desolations of the 
world . 

Or we have been smitten by some great sorrow, and 
we know not where to look for consolation. Our faith 
in God was quite spontaneous in hours of sunshine, 
but it lags and droops under actual calamity. We do 
not comprehend our affliction, and in irritable mur- 
murs or in sullen unbelief we confess the world's vic- 
tory over us. 

Or our souls are locked up in material conceptions, 
and we are confounded by the mystery of death. We 
are destitute of spiritual vision, and our eyesight 
strikes only upon the blank wall of the sepulchre. We 
have fed no part of our nature but the senses. But 
things around us are changing and passing away. 
There is no intelligence in the look of the dead. 
There is no work or device in the grave. We have 
seen no well-known form returning from that dim 
region to tell us of another life, and to assure us that 
thought and affection do not perish in our ashes. 

But why proceed with illustrations? Every man 
15* 



346 



SELECT SERMONS. 



knows what limitations he has encountered in the 
world. And if he has really overcome them, he knows 
that hennas done thus only by the aid of a vision that 
looks beyond this world, and a trust not fastened to 
the earth. It is this spiritual confidence that turns the 
edge of disappointment, transfigures sorrow and solves 
the problem of death. Under the ample dome of 
Christian perception all these material limitations 
dwindle away. They grow dim beneath the galaxy 
of grander realities. In that perception the world 
has no impassable barriers, no omnipotent doubts. Its 
extremest limit is but a crisis of change and ascension. 
In the spirit of the Christian there is a perpetual 
spring- tide, and in the wintry valleys he hears the 
ripple of ever-flowing streams. And it is a mighty 
victory, when inspired by the silent assurances of faith, 
he overcomes the world by endurance. 

And in the two forms thus indicated in this dis- 
course must we meet and experience the great conflict 
of life. In one way or another does the world place 
itself thus in antagonism to every human soul. The 
world — in its problem of evil, in its shapes of sin, in 
its suggestions of unbelief and despair. Not any good 
or sacred thing hr the world must we confound with 
these. We must set the mark of reprobation upon 
no tender relation, no true enjoyment. We must not 
identify with this evil the world of nature that God 
has made and filled with life and beauty. So glorious, 
brimming over with loveliness, with the munificence 
of countless blessings, and with golden sunshine. No» 
rather may we turn to that world as an ally in life's 



OVERCOMING THE WORLD. 



347 



struggle. See how steadily it does its work, and 
rounds all things according to the perfect law. See 
how calmly the grass grows, and the leaf unfolds, and 
each form of being ranges itself in faithful energy or 
silent resignation, unfolding in sunlight, receptive in 
the shower. Do not these aspects of nature afford 
symbols and lessons for ourselves, teaching us how to 
do and to endure ? 

But this world of evil, this world of temptations 
and of limitations, in one form and another does it 
encounter and press upon the human soul. Great is 
the conflict that goes on unseen by human eyes, in the 
secret arena of the human heart, where "this world of 
evil ranges its hosts and challenges our passions and 
our fear.-. And in this conflict one of three results is 
inevitable. Either we are conquered by the world ; 
or we enter into alliance with it ; or we overcome it. 
And oh ! let us remember how it was with Jesus. 
Did I speak of the help which we may draw from 
nature in this inward battle ? We need something 
nearer to us, more in sympathy with us than this. 
Nature does not sin, nature has not our human con- 
sciousness. One who thoroughly knows us — One who 
is closely in sympathy with us — One who has passed 
through our experiences and won the victory in them, 
whether of temptation or limitation — He alone can 
help us. ' ; Be of good cheer, I have overcome the 
world." To every tried and tempted spirit how wel- 
come, how assuring, how all-sufficient, are these calm, 
triumphant words. Martin Luther said that '" such a 
"saying as this is worthy of being carried from Rome 



348 



SELECT SERMONS. 



to Jerusalem on our knees." And men have carried 
it on their knees, and have borne it in their hearts in 
many a struggle, and are enabled by the help that is 
in this assurance to suffer and to act. And thus they 
do and endure, until, as they pass upward, me thinks 
Christ gives them palms greener than any that were 
strewn along His earthly way, and they wave them as 
tokens that in the power of His life and of His spirit, 
they too have overcome the world. 



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